Girls und Panzer: Series Kai
by Fuchsy
Summary: When Pravda won that year, at the 62nd National High School Sensha-Dou Tournament, they did more than defeat Kuromorimine and start everything that happened to Miho Nishizumi. That Semi-Final before that fateful day, they had beaten another school, who casted out their Captain as a failure. Makoto Shimada walks down a similar path to Miho Nishizumi's with a story very much alike.
1. Chapter I: Familiar Beginnings

Chapter I

Familiar Beginnings

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As a foreword to this story, this is one I've personally been hoping to do for a long time. I've written Girls und Panzer FanFiction before, and both of my published series here are all but dead. But between then and now, I've been working on another FanFiction with friends, which you guys may know as Augusta Per Angusta and have gained a lot of experience that my works in that as well. So, I've decided to create this story, as a spiritual successor to the ill-fated Panzer for Summer and for my mini-series, Girls und Panzer: Skirmishes. This story combines all of the experience and writing styles I've garnered over the last few years I've been writing FanFiction, with a lot of reading into the lore of Girls und Panzer as well. As a fair warning, this story will follow closely the same plot points of the actual Girls und Panzer show, borrowing a good amount of scenes of the first few episodes of the show and generally follow the same themes in terms of battles, but of course, with my own plot points and twist. So for the first few chapters, it may seem like a rerun of Girls und Panzer with some changes here in there, but I assure that it will change as the story develops. So here we go, a story that been put together over the course of three years: Girls und Panzer: Series Kai

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 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_

"Oooooowagh!" The sounds of her alarm clock, buzzing, or rather, beeping away at the morning, frightened Makoto as she woke up. She wasn't used to the harsh sounds it made, it had only been a few days since she was settled in at her new school. Her new room was decent enough, but the clock they decided to provide her wasn't particularly a decent welcome however.

 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Before it could let off another barrage of loud noises, she slammed her palm flat onto the snooze button before stepping off her single mattress bed. So basically it was more like pivoting around at the point then setting her feet down. But then it hit her, she was going to be late to school if she didn't hurry up and get dressed. Searching through her closet wardrobe of around a few outfits and finding her school's uniform, which was a simple seifuku with blue accents and a black scarf. It didn't make any sense, since the flag of the town it's based in, Tōkai, is green, but she couldn't really argue against it.

"I should hurry, before I'm late, I don't need a tardy on my record so early in the year!" With haste, she made her bed and grabbed her bookbag, which was basically a satchel, and ran out the entrance. It was a beautiful day, clear skies, sunny, but now there was the walk to campus, which was rather long considering the distance from her quarters to the classroom. Without any friends, or anyone she really knew, the walk there was rather lonely, but she didn't really care, it gave her peace of mind.

"Fresh Bread! Baked right this morning!" A nearby man yelled from a bakery, and Makoto wondered to herself about how early it was for him to start. They never need that at the school she used to attend, and looked at the storefront as she walked past. An assortment of breads and pastries lined both the counters and at the windows, it made her a bit hungry. Her mind had switched from the nice breeze and skies to the fact that she hadn't even eaten anything this morning.

"If only I wasn't so limited on time I could…" Before finishing her thought however, she strided away from the store quickly. The more she thought about food, the more she would feel hungry at this rate. She quicken her step and hoped she would reach lunchtime before her stomach started to digest itself. Before she knew it, the school building came into sight, a run of the mill exterior, she thought herself as she stepped past the main gates. Walking through the front courtyard, with students much like her, walking to their classes, she noticed the nice amount of flora around. A lot of grass around the concrete walkway to the main doors, cherry blossom trees that were fully in season. She must have stepped over tons of blossoms that had fallen and carried by the wind.

As she entered the building, she stared at the huge glistening emblem of Tōkai Girls High School, simply the kanji of Tōkai on top of their seal. Inside, she searched for the student reception and presented her Student ID to them. "Ah yes, the new transfer." The girl running the reception took out a folder and handed it to her, "These are your class schedules, the student handbook, and same basic supplies that will be provided to your due to your recent transfer. Please enjoy your time here." She spoke in a voice that seemed to be happy, but also seemed to be monotone, Makoto couldn't put her finger on it. She just took the folder and thanked the girl for her help.

Looking at her schedule, she still had a little time before Homeroom started, she had the usually classes. Her handbook was much more useful, it detailed the electives here, the period schedules, when lunch was, and just for her, the class roster for her Homeroom. She quickly found her way to Homeroom and entered the class. The girls around her were still talking with each other while she just simply sat down. Her appearance caught the attention of some of the students around her. She mumbled among themselves with things like: "That's the new girl isn't it?", "She's the transfer from that huge Schoolship." and "She must be the transfer, doesn't look like anyone I know." Unbeknownst to her, she had especially caught the attention of two particular students.

Life in her classes simply soared by as time went on, soon enough, it was lunchtime and she was back in homeroom. Finally, she could actually satisfy the empty stomach she's had since this morning. Although, she contradicted her urges by spending a rather long amount of time organizing her personal belongings before leaving. She didn't really have anything else to replace them with if she lost any of it and neither did she have the money to spend on other academic tools either, just enough to live comfortably. By the time she finished, she had just assumed that everyone had left for lunch ahead of her.

"Hey, New Girl! You want to eat lunch with us?" Suddenly, a cheery voice rang out from behind. To which she responding be quickly rising to her feet and turning to face the voice. In front of her were two girls, one tall with straight black hair, and the other about her height with shorter auburn hair stood looking at her. Confused, she pointed at herself, "Yes you, there's no one else in the room but us!" the shorter one responded to her gesture.

"Shiori-san, you're being rude to Shimada-san." The tall girl ridiculed her friend and and looked over at Makoto. "Sorry for that, let me rephrase for her. Would you like to eat lunch with us?" She finished her question, and apology, with a gentle smile, Makoto was still startled that someone would want to have lunch with her, especially because it was practically her first normal day here. But she couldn't just refuse, it wouldn't just be right if she did.

"Y-yes! I-I would like to eat lunch with you." Before leaving with them, she placed her things in her bag. With that, the three of them left for lunch, once in the line, they started to chat with each other while waiting. They were having a pretty nice conversation while they got their lunch from the ladies who worked there. Though Makoto personally wanted to go out for some actual food later, but her budget restricted her quite a bit.

"You're a pretty cool person Makoto, though I personally like when it when you get flustered like you did in the classroom. Sorry if it isn't a quality you like, but I dunno, I'm a fan of it, it's...cute." Shiori giggled just as she was served her food.

"I'm sorry about Shiori-san, she's like this, all the time, so you should be careful around her. Though, she is pretty popular with the students here, and back in town, so she's nice enough."

"Oh Hina, don't be like that, anyways, hey, Makoto, you haven't been talking a whole lot, are you okay?" She looked back at Makoto, who was standing behind Hina and couldn't really be directly talked to. The line sure was long, a string of students in front of them and a string of students behind them all trying to get their food for the day.

"I'm fine Shiori-san, you could stop calling me by Makoto fully if you want, you could always use shorthand if you prefer it. But yeah, not a whole lot is troubling me, it's just that I'm getting used to this." The three continued their conversation, which actually included Makoto at this rate and by the time they sat down to eat, they had already gotten acquainted.

"Oh, how I could I forgot!" The girl with Auburn hair looked at her and gave off a happy smile, "My name is Shiori Tachibana, I'm one of your classmates for homeroom." Then the taller girl also shared her name as well, looking directly at Makoto with her caring eyes.

"And my name is Hina Kazehaya, I'm also one of your classmates in homeroom." She gave off the same smile she did earlier in the classroom. Makoto was tried to place their names permanently in her mind, before she suddenly realized it was her turn to share her name. To which she suddenly stood up and bowed.

"O-oh, my name is Makoto...Shimada Makoto." Which was followed by her giving off a weak smile to make it seem better. The two girls just simply laughed at her formality, lightly of course. "D-did I do something funny?" She was worried that she may had just embarrassed herself in front of her new-found friends.

"No, not really, it's that no one is really that formal around these parts, you must have been a city person before coming here, right?" Hina kindly smiled at Makoto who had just sat down again. They sat right next to the windows, each of them were very large and provided a great view of the rest of the Schoolship. It was a very scenic place to sit, their table were simple metal ones, with some condiments lining the side.

"Y-yeah, you could say I'm like a city-girl, or at the least the Schoolship I used to attended was kinda like city…" She blushed at her own answers before beginning to just eat some of her food. Before long, she was interrupted by Shiori, who had some statements to make herself about Makoto.

"You don't be so shy Mako-san, it's fine to be nervous on the first day I suppose." Mako-san? She didn't realize their friendship had escalated to point of using her name in shorthand so soon. As for Shiori's attempt at making her feel better, it really did, or at the least just a little. The day wasn't so bad after all she supposed, a nice lunch, and two new...friends to boot as well, or at least she hoped that they would stay friends.

"It's not often that we get transfers here, Tōkai isn't a very large place to live, and the schoolship here is attended by even less." Hina so kindly informed her of the situation. "Why did you choose to transfer here? Did anything happen to do beforehand?" She bluntly asked Makoto, setting her chopsticks just before she was starting to eat her rice.

"W-well, I suppose you could say something happened to make me transfer here." Makoto also placed her eating utensils down as a result of the question and looked down in a gloomy fashion. But it didn't seem like Hina exactly picked up on her gestures and continued to ask her questions.

"Was it an issue with the school? Did something happen with your family? Perhaps you had no choice but to transfer here." Yet still, Hina pressed the question, unaware of what her new friend was thinking. Makoto didn't particularly like to talk about her previous school and what happened there.

"Something along those lines I suppose, I don't really really like to talk about it…" Her answer put the three into an awkward silence for a while before Hina realized that they had barely even touched their food since they had sat down. Even the steam from their hot tea was starting to dissipate as they were sitting and staring at eachother.

"Let's just eat our food before it's cold, we could talk later." The three started to dig into their lunch, provided by the school. It was simple, much like most things at this school. A nice bowl of steamed rice, some salted fish, an assorted variety of vegetables like seaweed and such. With some hot tea, though it was starting be lukewarm by now, to finish it off. "So, Makoto-san, out of curiosity, what have you chosen for your electives this year?"

"I don't think so, I haven't had a chance to look at any of them yet, I really should decide soon." Makoto started to think about what electives they had at this school, she had never even thought about it until now. Electives were pretty big, at least for her personally, all those things you would have to commit to.

"There's no rush here, there's not nearly enough students around here to fill up all of them." Shiori chimed in, "Besides, there aren't that many electives in the first place." and she wasn't wrong either, compared to most other schools, they weren't too well funded and thus didn't attract many students nor did it have the electives either.

"I suppose, but I still need time to think about this, I don't want to commit to an elective I don't like." Makoto sat and looked down in an awkward shyness. Suddenly, the PA sprung to life in the nearby hallway and at the front of the classroom. It was a simple system, a speaker inside a wooden box connected to each other by wires hung along the ceiling and walls. It shouted out a surprisingly high sound quality voice.

"Attention, all Students, you are to gather at the gymnasium. There will now be orientation on a new available elective starting today." Before dying out again, leaving the three girls to ponder about what it may be that's so important.

"What do you think it could be?" Shiori presented the question while they were heading over to the gym. "Usually they don't announce new electives in the middle of the day, usually they don't announce anything at all!" Shiori was right again, the PA system was rarely ever used, and similarly, electives were really introduced because of funding and lack of interest for the students.

"I know getting new electives is pretty rare and all, but to announce it…" Hina added on, just before they reached the gym, a large room where all the students were already gathered. They saw them all sitting on the floor as more students trickled in slowly. The three joined in, sitting down somewhere in the crowd. Standing at the front, on a makeshift platform, were two rather important looking students. They had blue bands around their upper sleeve and stood still for a while.

"That's the student council, aside from the administration, they practically run the school." Shiori whispered into Makoto's ear as she just simply stated at the two. "There's usually three of them though, their president is missing, wonder where she is."

"I'm right here." A whispering voice came from behind them, they looked to see a girl crouching down with them. "Hello girls, how are you doing?" She asked them, but it seemed more rhetorical as she didn't even give them time to answer. "Makoto Shimada? I need to have a talk with you, privately, out in the hallway." Makoto looked nervously at her two friends who just nodded at her to go before leaving with the girl.

There the two of them stood alone before the girl spoke up again, in a much more conceited tone too. "My name is Aizu Nishida, I'm the president of the Student Council here." She didn't seem much like a president, not that much different from her subordinates up on the platform. "I wanted to discuss a particular subject about your choice of elective this year…"

"We will now begin an introductory video on the new elective! Please keep your eyes on the screen and pay attention!" The lights in the gymnasium went out as a projector starter to show a video on the white screen they set up on stage. Makoto looked out from the open door nearby and saw the title to the video.

 _An Introduction to Sensha-Dou._ She said to herself in her mind. Before that is, freaking out in her mind about this new elective. "I hope you consider Sensha-Dou as your elective this year, that's a personal recommendation." To her, it would seem that the past had finally caught up with her this time around.

"W-what? I thought this school didn't practice Sensha-Dou! That was the one condition that made me come here in the first place!" Makoto's panicked state didn't even faze Aizu as she just continued with her intended message all the same. It almost seemed like she had planned this all along, including Makoto's anxiety.

"Well, it's clear that we're reinstating the Tōkai Sensha-Dou program. You should very much, consider selecting it." She still smiled while Makoto simply just stared at her in shock. "I know about the old school you attended, I know about the circumstances surrounding your transfer. But I hope you realize my word could easily put you into the same situation." Despite her cheery demeanor, she outright threatened Makoto with academic expulsion if she didn't sign up for Sensha-Dou. "I'll let you figure it out with your friends." She walked off, roughly around the time the video in the gym ended, leaving Makoto to debate her choices.

Quickly, her two new friends ran to join her with Shiori immediately barraging her with questions. "What did she want? Why did she want you? Are you okay? Why are you making that face?" Before Hina cut her off for Makoto to get the chance to answer.

"I-I think was just threatened by the Student Council to sign up for Sensha-Dou…" She disclosed her recent conversation to her friends, much to their dismay. It was clear that it was an abuse of the Council's power, but what could they do?

"We should file a complaint to the Human Resources department!" Shiori encouraging them to do something while going back to home room.

"Shiori-san, we're a high school, we don't have one of those, the closest is the Student Council and they're issuing the threat."

"Hina! They're using their power to force Mako into an elective she doesn't even want! I don't care, but that's dirty, we should just march right up to their office after school and complain!"

"That's not a bad idea, how about it Makoto-san? The three of us go to the Student Council after school and confront them."

"N-no, that's not necessary, it would get us into more trouble than needed, surely they aren't serious as to expel me right? I'll need time to think about this…" She put the other two into a worried silence. Right before they started to walk home, she waved goodbye to her newfound friends, trying to pull a smile. But at home, she could barely sleep in the dark solitude of her room. Her mind was full of thoughts of what to do, staring at the moon, she wished she didn't have to deal with all of this, but she had to make up her mind by tomorrow. So she closed her eyes, had tried to sleep it off for tonight.

 _The Next Day_

The new day brought Makoto back to school and with her friends in the morning. Previously, she did have a rather hard time trying to just simply sleep off the problem. The school had handed out the sign-up sheets for their electives this year, and they just received them early in the morning. Though a new day it was, the worries of yesterday carried with them, especially the threat given by Aizu. "So are you going to sign up for Sensha-Dou, Makoto?" Hina hesitantly asked her as they stared at their sheets.

"Well, I don't know, some of these other electives look tempting...but you remember what the student council said." She hadn't even picked up her utensil for marking what she wanted, the entire time just staring at the sheet. There was a whole assortment of electives to choose from, and Sensha-Dou was so thoughtfully placed on the top of the sheet.

"You don't have to listen to them Mako-san, they're in over their heads, there's no way they could have the power to expel you!" Shiori tried to bring her spirits up about this. Yeah, they couldn't possibly just up and expel from the school, right?

"How could I forget, there's still a sensible administration here, I hope, how about we all sign up for a different electives, at the least we'd have each other if things come to pass?" Makoto was trying to convince her friends to participate in the same elective so that they could be together more often.

"But what should we sign up for?" Shiori did bring up a good point, the three of them had never actually considered what elective to take in the first place. There weren't that many choices, but it was still daunting as they would have to commit to this elective for the rest of the year, or at least the rest of the semester.

"I suppose, my personal choices are between Archery and um...Swimming, never knew that was an elective." Makoto had her eyes down on the two blank spaces next to the two aforementioned electives and so held her utensil rightly in her hand.

"I'm into Swimming but not Archery...I'm not as physically adept…" Hina looked down in a bit of shame because of how weak she viewed herself. Hina wasn't the most keen on any activity that would exert a heavy amount of physical activity on her, swimming be one of the only exceptions to that.

"Well I'm also interested into Swimming, I suppose we should pick it and hope we get in? We still need a second one just in case it doesn't work out for us." The three girls checked off Swimming and searched for a second elective to sign up for. After a long bout of debate, Makoto suggested something.

"Well, maybe we could just take up Music, that's simple enough for all of us." Makoto looked up and her friends replied with a nod, they had all managed to signup for similar electives and when it came time to turn them in, she stared at the blank space next to Sensha-Dou, before putting it through.

A good portion of the day passed by and the girls were sitting in Homeroom right after they finished lunch. "So I really hope he'll notice me this time, at least when we're on-" Suddenly, the PA roared to life, two days in a row, calling out Makoto.

"Attention! Makoto Shimada, please report to the Student Council! That is all." Shocked, the three of them looked at each other, with faces of horror as the PA died off. Suddenly, Makoto went pale as she looked down towards her desk.

"I-I suppose they do have power…" Makoto worriedly mumbled while touching her fingers together. "They must be really mad that I didn't sign up for Sensha-Dou, furious even, I should've just done it in the first place…" Hina placed her hand on Makoto's shoulder, to calm her down.

"It's okay, they can't possibly do anything worse to you at this point. Besides, you don't have to go alone, me and Shiori can go with you." She instilled some hope into Makoto, what little hope she could in the face of expulsion.

"Yeah! We're by your side Mako-san! With three of us, they'll surely be discouraged, at least a little more." Makoto looked at her two friends, and nodded, the three stood up together and went to confront the student council in their office. It was located in one of the deeper areas of the school. It got noticeably dimmer in lighting as they approached their location, and the furnishing seemed to be a bit more expensive as well. They reached the brown door with a sign next to it saying that it was the Student Council's main office.

"Now or never…" Makoto nudged at the other two to follow her into the room who, even though they were the ones that encouraged her, hesitantly followed her. The room was even darker then the space outside, it made it seem like they were now entering an entirely different realm altogether, though that could be some sort of subjective statement.

As soon as they entered the room, Aizu spoke out from behind her desk. "Oh, Makoto, how nice of you to visit us at this time." Then she noticed that she had brought friends. "I see you brought your friends, well these are my "friends", the one with glasses is Mino, the other is Yuki." Aizu referred to the two girls on the sides of her desk who seemed to be standing patiently for their cues.

"Hello, Minori Fukui, I'm the president's direct subordinate, in other words, Vice-President." The girl with glasses stepped forward and bowed, signalling the other to do the same. But rather than just stand still, she actually bowed instead of Minori's rather hostile staring.

"And I'm Yukiko Kuroda, Yuki for short, I'm the closest thing Public Relations and Human Resources, so basically I just run all the public issues and concerns the students have."

"There is a fourth member to our group, but she's been busy around the country preparing for our Sensha-Dou practices ahead of time." Aizu leaned back in her chair and set her feet up on the desk. "So, did you decide yet, Makoto, about our proposition?" She of course, presented the question they were there for.

"I suppose you're thinking we called you here for this?" Minori held up Makoto's electives sheet towards the three girls. She could clearly see her own choices, even in the dim light provided by only a night lamp on a nearby coffee table. The fact that the entire back of the room was window didn't help much because it was in the shadow of the main building.

"That's why you called out Makoto-san right? While me and Hina-san are interested in Sensha-dou, you've been threatening Makoto-san to join!" Shiori came to Makoto's defense almost immediately with Hina nodding in support. "That's not right! You can't threaten her with with expulsion just because she disagrees!"

"It's because we require her in the program, it's her duty as a Student to heed our demands. It's either that, or expulsion." Minori pushed up her glasses and ended her statement bluntly. That sparked a conflict between the two parts, with the Student Council on one end and the Students on the other. The two shouted back and forth while Makoto tuned out the argument. She thought to herself about this, and tried to balance the facts. She had previously promised herself, and family, that she wouldn't practice Sensha-Dou anymore. But, her friends were defending her in this situation, and it wouldn't be fair to either them or even the school itself if they had to do anymore for this strange.

Slowly, she looked up, and her eyes connected with that of Aizu's, who was smiling smugly at her, and then she winked, lightning the last fuse in Makoto's mind. "I'll join the Sensha-Dou team!" She cut the conflict into silence, and shock as the four others just stared at her. "If it would please everyone, I will join the team, okay?"

"B-but Mako-san…"

"It's okay, guys, I don't want you guys to fight so hard for me, you've already done enough just by being friends with me."

"Then we'll join you too." Hina quickly interjected her loyalty. "Besides, me and Shiori were interested anyways, that video was quite convincing you know." Makoto was absolutely happy that her new friends would stick with her all the way. She smiled and her friends did the same to her. Meanwhile Aizu was ecstatic considering the outcome of her "persuasion".

"Good to see you could see it from our point of view Makoto. It's best for you and for the school. I'm looking forward to seeing you and your friends tomorrow, the change to your electives will be made tomorrow. Now bye~! Me and the Student Council have work to do!" She waved to the three girls as they exited the room, by this point, it was time for class again. They quickly blazed through class in order to talk things over in their free time.

"I know this nice Lettuce Cafe, it's just like the one that's actually in town!" Shiori, before they could even talk, dragged them to the Schoolship version of the Lettuce Cafe. Just then, Makoto had realized that she didn't even have money to buy anything here and kept silent about it when they were order. Or at the least she tried to before Shiori noticed that she hadn't done exactly that. "Are you going to order anything? It's been awhile since lunch, Mako-san."

"O-oh! I...I don't really have any money, or at least enough to eat anything other than instant noodles for now." She was hoping be sent money from her family soon, at the least her family had the decency to do that when they transferred her here.

"Oh. Would you want me to order something for you? Me and Hina are ordering the same thing, do you want it too." She gave a very nice gesture to Makoto who was shocked that her friend would do that for her. No one had ever really extended such things to her in the past, it made her rather happy.

Afterwards, they started to talk over a nice meal of Omuraisu, the dish that all three of them had gotten. "See? It's not bad at all!" Shiori was chowing down on her helping on it, Hina and Makoto hadn't even started with eating it. "Why do you still look so down, Mako-san?" She had noticed that despite the food, Makoto was still looking a little gloomy.

"You guys didn't have to come with me…" Makoto was busy talking with her mouth full to really notice. "Wow, this is really good." She looked down at the plate of Omuraisu and wondered to herself, who Shiori was able to convince her to eating an omelette when it was close to evening.

"It is good!" Hina, for the first time, also talked with her mouth full. "Anyways, of course we had to come with you, you're our friend after all." She smiled with her cheeks puffed out due to the food in her mouth and went back to eating. Shiori followed suit with her own encouraging spiel after swallowing her food.

"Yeah! We'll always be with you, that's what friends are for Mako-san!" Shiori always made the situation better, or at the least she tried to. But then she suddenly got serious and posed a really good question "So what's the deal with the student council? Why did they want you of all people so badly?"

"Yeah, why is that? Are you experienced in Sensha-Dou?" Hina looked over at Makoto, who was surprised by the question being asked.

"I suppose you could say that, though I considered myself retired from the sport becoming by coming here. I wasn't expecting for it to be revived with my arrival."

"Wow, are you like, really good at it?" Shiori set her spoon and fork down and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

"Yeah, you could say that too, but good I subjective I suppose. But yeah, in most people's eyes, and I mean only most, I'm good." She thought back to her previous year of Sensha-Dou, needless to say, it sent a pretty deep shiver down her spine just thinking about. "Could we get away from the subject?"

"Well I'm glad you're with us either way, Makoto-san, we'll be with you all the way, no matter how difficult it is. And with your experience, how knows what we could accomplish." Hina instantly was able to bring their spirits up high, and before they knew it, they had finished eating and parted their separate ways.

As she walked home, she looked at the sky with each stride taking her closer to the building she lived in. The setting sun with unblocked by clouds, and it gave everything around her a red-orange tint their shadows were extremely extended. She almost missed her building just gazing at the beautiful sky. In her previous school, she never had the time to pay attention the things in nature.

Opening her door, she walked up the winding spiral staircase up to her room. Unlocking with her School ID, to which she had always kept in her bag, and entering her room. It had occurred to her, just now, that her room was incredibly bland. All her walls are white, there were only simple wooden furnishings, her bed was only the mattress and her closet was devoid. Though she was already aware of the last two things to be fair, she wanted to make it look a bit more lively, but she didn't have any money.

The only thing that made the room better was the window, which let her look out at an amazing view. By now, the sun had already set and the moon was up, Makoto had already changed into her sleeping clothes and looked out the window. Though, she did notice something, there, on her windowsill was a white envelope. "Here's your spending money for the Month." Whoever sent it hadn't signed their name, but she knew clear in her mind who it was.

Opening it, she was actually given a particularly large sum of Yen, enough for the things she needed and then some more. She was glad that her family still kept in touch with her, but still, signing up for Sensha-Dou might been a mistake despite the threat. But she just simply set it aside and laid in bed. Tomorrow would've been a new day, and the first of which that she would be in Tōkai's Sensha-Dou team. Thus, with a newfound hope, she slipped into sleep, and the day was over.


	2. Chapter II: Their Legacy

Chapter II

Their Legacy

* * *

That next day, all the students that had signed Sensha-Dou as their Electives had gathered near some warehouses behind the school, including the Student Council who more or less ran the program rather than were members. All in all, Makoto counted around 22, including herself and her friends of course. All of them had clearly grouped into their respective cliques and were discussing about random things, like the things they were going to do after school or what tanks they had to use.

There was Ryoko Matsuoka, Kamiko Shizuka, Toshiko Koizumi and Chie Nishimura, who made up the School's Chess Team/Club, all of them practically masters at the sport. Then there was Natsuko Honda, Teruko Nakano, Mitsuko Yoshida and Haruko Tsukino of the Soccer Team, but is more like a club because they never participate in official competitions due to funding issues. The only other group was Aoi Sato, Eiko Watanabe, Kyou Himura, Ran Maki, Ume Ueda and Mai Kita, the one 1st Years who were interested in Sensha-Dou and had formed a group out of common grade. Finally, off to the sidelines were Tsuki Shukumei and Asagi Nasu of Class 2-4 who were more or less unaffiliated with anyone.

"Not a whole lot of girls signed up…" Hina looked at the others then back at her own group made of Makoto, Shiori and herself. "I suppose it wouldn't be that popular, to crew a tank…" She looked worried at what may come of this new class, it was clear that they would have to be pretty dedicated to it.

"No, it's fine, we shouldn't need that many students, because this is a small school, it's not likely that we'll have a lot of tanks, right?' Makoto knew a lot about how tanks could be operated in Sensha-Dou, especially the fact they didn't need to completely fill out a tank to work at maximum efficiency, the Radio Operator could be juggled other members she supposed. "Depending on the tanks we get to use, this number of students should just be fine.

"Oooooo~! I can't wait to start, especially with you here with us Mako-san~!" Shiori squeaked in excitement as Makoto, rather than listen, paid attention to the Student Council. Due to the rather unfriendly welcome she's had for the last few days, she didn't have a particularly high opinion of them. From what she saw and heard, they were discussing about the future of their fledgling Sensha-Dou program. Minori and Yukiko were talking each other, but Aizu was standing further away talking to someone on her phone.

Then she noticed that the usually smug President came back to her little group with a slight look of gloom on her face. That same face spread to her two subordinates who looked at each other for a while before assuming a confident facade. They stepped forward and spread out in evenly fashion and Minori sounded off the beginning of Sensha-Dou class. "We will now begin the Sensha-Dou class." She seemed quite leisurely despite the expressions Makoto saw earlier.

Suddenly the talk got louder as the Student Council started to open the large doors to the Warehouse. "I wonder what tanks there are, maybe a Tiger? Ooo, a Panther perhaps. You think they have a Pershing or a Centurion?" It all muddled together into what seemed like a singular string of of sentences. But the talk all but went silent when they saw just what tanks, or rather, singular tank they had for. Squinting at it in the darkness of the Warehouse, Makoto thought she knew what it was right away.

"A Chi-Ha?" She thought to herself as the students started to near the one tank inside. But then she changed her mind upon closer inspection, "No...a Chi-He?" due to the driver's viewport not being on a bulge in the forward hull. Finally, she took it all away with one look at the turret as well as gun, and her eyes opened with realization of what it actually was. Running up to its side and confirming her suspicions. "This is, a Type 2 Ho-I!" She shouted in clear earshot of the other students who replied with mumbling of how run down and weak it looked compared to their expectations.

Her friends looked nervously at the students around them before Shiori tried to continue the conversation. "What's...a Ho-I, Makoto-san?" She asked with a nervous laugh at the end and cleared her voice. "Is it good, at the least?"

"The Ho-I is a support Gun Tank designed by the Imperial Japanese Army, it's suppose to provide fire support but could easily function as Tank Destroyer. It's fast, mobile, well armed with a 75mm Howitzer, and best of all…" Looking at the outside hull, the suspension and the tracks, she looked just fine but needed some work and repairing. "She could be fully functional with just a bit work!" Her statement instilled a bit of hope and excitement into the others, who up until now, thought it was just a scrap heap of metal that wouldn't even function.

"Great! But...there's twenty-two of us, and it's only one tank." One of the others made a very good point. "Yeah, aren't there any other tanks here?" Thus began another great conversion, to which Makoto sighed. They were right, twenty-two students on only one five-person tank, wouldn't work out too well.

"That's why we're giving you your first assignment." Minori cut the chatter in half with her blunt voice. "Today we're going to be searching for tanks, this Schoolship used to practice Sensha-Dou in previous."

"You will be responsible for finding these tanks, the only clues we have is that they are still somewhere here on the school grounds and the adjacent areas, but that's all they left." Yukiko added on to Minori's statement, "Aside from this tank, there are a good number of tanks you may be able to find, though it may be hard because they were just abandoned in random places."

"The deadline is...tomorrow." Aizu, in usually fashion, made everyone depressed extremely quickly. "I've been talking with the National Sensha-Dou League, and they've dispatched an Official Instructor. She'll be here tomorrow, and will only instruct us for a month, but she demands that we have a minimum of five tanks, as those are League Rules as well." She then bit her own lower lip, "I wish you guys good luck in finding our tanks." She bowed as if it meant anything, but all the students did was disperse and groan while doing so.

"So where should we start looking first?" Makoto, Hina and Shiori were all still standing around in the Warehouse discussing about their first place to search. Everyone else, including the Student Council, had already started their own searches. The Chess Team was looking around the ponds and lakes in the far back of the ship. The Soccer team decided to search in the more physically demanding mountainous regions and the 1st Years were looking in areas pretty close to the School itself.

"Well, everyone else has already gone, and you heard those 1st Years talking about searching around here." Makoto could only think of one other place to look, "There's always the dense forests nearby, if there's any place a tank could be abandoned, it would be in the woods where it's hard to find them."

"Right! There's no better place to search, what do you think Hina-san?" Shiori was getting all riled up again.

"Mmm, I think it's a good idea as well, it's always a good thing to be outside I suppose." Hina nodded and they all started to get ready for the long haul in the forests when Makoto noticed something. One of the girls had stayed behind and was peeping at them from behind the Warehouse doors. She didn't look like she belonged with any of the other groups at all.

"Um, hello?" When she reached out for the girl, she receded behind the door and peeped out again. "Aren't you a 2nd Year Student? Like us?" She nodded slowly but didn't dare to come out in the open. "Are you with anyone else?" This time she shook her head rapidly. "Hmm, would you like to join the search with us?" Her eyes widened and Makoto could clearly see her blushed.

"Y-yes! I would." She side-stepped into the open and introduced herself to Makoto and her friends, who had just been watching. "I'm Tsuki Shukumei, of Class 2-4!" In formal manner, she bowed while Hina and Shiori introduced themselves as well."

"Hina Kazehaya, Class 2-1."

"Shiori Tachibana, Class 2-1."

"And I'm Ma-" Before Makoto could even introduce herself, Tsuki apparently knew who she was just by looking at her. Mainly because she cut her off and yelled her name in giddy joy.

"You're Makoto Shimada! Class 2-1!" She squeaked out and ran to hug her. Makoto responded with a guttural sound and falling back. "It's so nice to meet you in person Makoto-senpai!"

"I'm not older than you…" She regained herself and picked both herself and Tsuki up and reformed her posture. "So, you must clearly know me." Tsuki dusted off her skirt bowed yet again.

"I'm sorry about that, but yes, I know you! I couldn't just keep in much longer that you were going to enroll in our Sensha-Dou program~!" She smiled and laughed at the circumstances as the other three just looked on. "So we were going to go out and look for tanks in the woods right? I know exactly where you could find one~!"

Tsuki led the three on a long hike deep into the woods, but Makoto quite enjoyed it. The grass was green, the trees were lively, the breeze was like and the sun was shining on like it always did. It always seemed like clear skies around here, she thought to herself while listening to the birds sing in the background. She had drowned out Tsuki and the others talking to each other all the way there.

"Where are you leading us Tsuki-san?" Shiori had finally broken and asked her the obvious question.

"There's a secret and isolated waterfall all the way back here, I know because I often hike and camp out here. I came across this tank while on my travels and I've made this waterfall a frequent spot for me to stop while on break or leave." She described as she held on tightly to her pack and she walked the woods like she knew it like the back of her hand as well.

"Wow, are you always out here? I envy you for having so much time to spend outside of school or other matters." Hina chuckled as they started to enter clearing in the trees.

"You could say that I have a lot of free time." She smiled in the clearing, revealing a nice waterfall and spring coming off of one of the small mountains on the Schoolship. "Here we are~! The tank is right over there." She pointed to a tank tipped upside down in the nearby flowing stream. "It's a Panzer III Ausf. G modeled, armed with a 3.7cm KwK 36 L/46.5, it has more armor than any of the previous models and can be retrofitted with a 5cm KwK 38 L/42 if we ever need you." She quickly ran out the explanation to this tank like she memorized it.

"Wow." Were the only words that came out of the others' mouths as they examined the tank. Much like the Type 2 Ho-I, all it needed was some maintenance work for it to be fully operational by the end of the day. While they were busy marvelling and figuring out a way to get it back to the school, the other groups had been busy with finding their own tanks. The Chess Team, headed by Ryoko had been searching in the springs and ponds all day."

"Lasker~!" Toshiko moaned out Ryoko's nickname in the club, "We've been searching all day and we haven't found anything." She was extremely tired from all the walking and sometimes even wading as well. Out of the four, she was the most physically disadvantaged, "We should've just stuck to playing chess and beating all the local teams. Spring after spring after spring, some ponds here and there, but the rocky yet-grassy terrain was wearing her off.

"Don't waver Kasparov, we'll find a tank soon." Kamiko gave her a thumbs up and an encouraging statement. Though it had little effect on the fatigued Grandmaster(but not really a "Grandmaster") who was wavering near one of the springs. They had been searching this area for a long time, they thought that if a tank got stuck in one of these springs, they would've abandoned it there because of water damages and how deep some of the pools are.

"That's easy for you to say Fischer!" She called out Kamiko for doing the pointless, Kamiko was always much more athletic than the rest, though she was only just as skilled as anyone else in the club. "I'm just going to take a lie-down for a while, wake me up when we find something." She attempted to sit down, but didn't realize she had just backed up onto the edge of spring.

"Uh, Kaspar, that's not a-" SPLASH! Toshiko had tried to sit down on open air and fell down when she gave away in her legs. However, she didn't didn't fall all the way into the spring, but instead she landed on something quite hard and thick with a resounding thump as she did so."

"Oh, you landed on a tank." Chie pointed out the odd shape in the spring and went to examine it. "Looks like a Sturmgeschutz III, Ausf. F/8 model." She had pulled out her tank identification book she had purchased just for the Sensha-Dou program."

"Nice work, Kaspy-chan, Magnus-san, both of you for finding a tank, now all we have to do is find a way to get it back to the grounds." But then it had occurred to her that she didn't know how, "So, how do we do that? Hehe…" While Chess Team was busy with their work, the Soccer Team was also busy traversing the mountainous regions with climbing gear and hard work.

"This is a nice warmup for later!" Natsuko shouted out as she rappelled down a rock slope in one of the rock faces. She and Teruko were doing all the work, Mitsuko and Haruko were supposed to keep their equipment safe and prevent it from breaking or slipping. "You ready for some Igo Soccer later, Teruko!?" Parallel to her was Teruko, all the way on the other side of the rock face look around.

"Yeah! We need to borrow some Go Chips from the Chess Club later!" She was scanning the horizon and nearby rock terrain for anything resembling a tank. "I don't see anything yet Natsuko! Anything on your side?" On the other side Natsuko was doing the same but couldn't find anything. Meanwhile Mitsuko and Haruko were busy looking around on top near the equipment.

"Whew. This a lot of work, be right back, I need to check on something, Mitsuko." Haruko looked over the edge of the rock down at the other two. "Hey, you two, you got anything down there? We haven't found anything up here yet!" They responded back with resounding negatives and Haruko sat back and relaxed. "I really do hope we find a tank soon."

"Why? We do have all the time in the world afterall. Well, minus the fact that we need them by tomorrow, but there's no rush to it. The sun isn't going to set anytime soon Haruko."

"Yeah, but I didn't expect I'd have to be traversing such terrain for a tank Mitsuko, why did our predecessors have to abandon their tanks without keeping any records of it? It just doesn't add up. I mean, why would we even think that they abandoned one here of all places?"

"Still, this type of terrain is perfect for working up endurance and training in driving the tank isn't it? At least on the more stable areas of the region anyways. Besides, leave no stone unturned."

"I suppose…" Haruko stared up at the sky, the sun blared down on her and she shielded her eyes from its rays. The entirety of this place of mountainous and rocky, a bunch of dropoffs and impossible places to get with rappels. The sun shined everywhere, but where were some areas even the sun could not reach. Rocks, rocks and rocks as far as the eye could see, the forests were in a neat border near the furthest ends. But then, something flashed and caught her eye, "Hey, Mitsuko, hand me those Binoculars would you kindly?"

"Uh...sure, here," Mitsuko reached for her pack and took out a pair of high grade binoculars that she personally owned then gave them to Haruko. "Why do you need them, did you see something?" She watched as her friend bring the binoculars to her ears look off in the horizon. Looking in the same general direction, she also saw a gleam in the distance as well, "Is that?"

"Yeah! That's a tank!" She saw a tank up high on one of the higher coves in one of the rock faces far away. Giving the binoculars back to Mitsuko, she looked down and yelled at the two girls below. "Hey! Natusko! Teruko! We found a tank!" The two looked up and she pointed in the direction of the cove. They pulled out their own binoculars and looked in that direction.

"That is a tank! Come on girls, we're going to relocate!" Natsuko started to climb up the rock face and once together, they all packed up all of their climbing/rappelling gear to relocated. After some gruelling hiking they reached the surface right above the cove they needed to get into. They nailed down some nylon bungee rope and put their safety harnesses, nailing the cords down as well. The two took off from the edge and landed safely on the side of the face and slowly made their way down. With one last jump, they made into the cove and looked at their prize.

Teruko took out her flip phone and snapped a picture of the tank then she sent it to the Student Council with the message of "What tank is this?" A while later, they responded back to her, "This is a Type 95 Ha-Go light tank, it's Japanese." She fistbumped Natsuko but then pondered the question, "Right, so how are we going to get this tank out of here...and how did it get in here anyways?" While they were busy with that, the 1st Years had their own worries, they had searched a lot time for records of the tanks their school used to operate but found nothing.

Aoi was leading the group of six girls and suggested where to go next, "So according to the maps, our school used to store their tanks in places other than that warehouse." They had borrowed a map from the library that dated back a long ways and it indicated that they used to store the tanks in a rather isolated space on the school grounds. "Hmmm, so this is the building."

They had stopped at a very unkept building, far in the corner of the grounds, "A-are you sure this where we'll going to find a tank?" Eiko was holding onto Aoi, her legs were shaking quite rapidly as she was scared by how run down this building looked compared to the others.

"Yeah Aoi, are you sure you were reading that map correctly? We didn't bring any flashlights in the first place. I only have the one here." Kyou held up her personal flashlight and waved it around. The others started to agree with them, insisting that Aoi must have read the map incorrectly.

"No, I'm sure this is the building that the records point towards, and come on, don't be afraid, it's just an old building, it's not like anyone was murdered here, let's go." The others looked frantically at each other, but had to go with Aoi anyways because they just had to follow someone. She opened the door, an old wooden green one with peeling paint, and it noticeably creaked as she did so. "They should really oil this door…" The room was completely dark, and she tried to turn on the lights with a switch nearby, but it didn't look like it worked.

"When I signed up for Sensha-Dou, this wasn't what I expected, I didn't expect to be searching around dark buildings, at least having my own flashlight would help…" Ran hid behind her best friend, Ume who would just following Kyou and her constant movement of the flashlight.

"Would you mind getting off of my back, Ran?" Ume was getting annoyed that Ran was holding on to her so tightly. At this point, she was more annoyed than she was scared of the building just earlier. But Ran refused to loosen her grip on her and stayed clinged to her waist.

"Yes! I would mind very much if I had to let go of you."

"You guys are idiots…" Mai was the furthest back and mumbled to herself half the time, she wasn't voluntarily put into this group, more or less she just had no one to go with. Now she was wishing that she would've gone with that girl, Makoto, rather than these girls. "Hmmm?" By now, her eyes had adapted and she saw something ahead. "Guys!"

Her suddenly yelling frightened about all of the girls in front of her, including Kyou who dropped the flashlight. She frantically tried to pick up when she did, she shined it at Mai who shielded her eyes from the focused light. "W-what is it Mai!?" Eiko yelled at her, "You almost gave me a heart attack!" Mai just simply pointed ahead of them.

"There's a large covered object up ahead." The other girls looked there and didn't really see it. "No, Kyou, give me that." Kyou ceded the flashlight to Mai and shined it right on this large object. It was clearly covered in a few rain sheets and then a another thicker one right over them. "They really tried to hide this, didn't they?" Mai commented as they neared the object.

"Alright, guys, help me get these covers off guys!" Aoi mustered the others to help her pull off these sheets one by one. The first one they pulled off was the really thick on on the top. The moment they pulled it off and they tossed it down, right when it hit the round, it unleashed a huge cloud of dust. To which the girls covered their eyes and face to avoid. "Wow, this has really been here a long time." They pulled sheet after sheet, each one having considerably less dust on the last before the final one was pulled off. Mai shined her/Kyou's, light on it, it was a rather large tank.

"Well, what a surprise…" She flipped open her phone open and texted to Minori. "We found a tank, send a team to get it." And then flipped to back into rest. "So, what do you guys like to do in the dark?" She shined the light on her face and stared at everyone else, much to their horror.

By mid-day, they were able to find four tanks, creating a minimum lineup of five tanks. Aizu was quite impressed with what they were able to find. She and the Student Council, for the past few hours, had been sitting around telling the Tech Students what to do and where to go. "M6 Heavy Tank, Type 95 Ha-Go Light Tank, StuG III Ausf. F/8 Assault Gun, Panzer III Ausf. G Medium Tank and a Type 2 Ho-I Gun Tank." Minori read off the complete list of tanks they had now.

They were all old and clearly hadn't been maintain for at least a decade or two. "So this is what we have…" Shiori groaned, "I'll be honest, that hype I had earlier? It's worn off because of all the hiking we've done." By now all she wanted to do was go home to a nice dinner, even though it wasn't even close to evening yet.

"That's why you need to get more often Shio-san." Tsuki was still chugging along at a nice pace. To which Shiori was peeved of at and looked at her menacingly. "Err...I mean, yeah, Shiori...that sure was a lot of hiking we did…" She gulped because she was honestly scared of Shiori might have don't to her if she kept on going. But then she noticed a tired looking girl walking towards them, "Asagi? Where have you been all this time?"

Asagi stopped near their group, it's then that Makoto realized that this girl had practically disappeared off the face of the Earth during the search. "I've been places…" She spoke in a tired monotone voice, thinking about how she was sleeping on a bench after about five minutes of searching, she had just woke up. "I didn't find anything, but it looks like you guys did…"

At this point, Aizu had stepped onto a wooden box to announce something. "Alright! It's time to assign tanks! We will be doing so based on what groups had found what tanks! With the exception of you five." She pointed at the group around Makoto before continuing, Minori had handed her a clipboard of the team rosters. "The Type 2 Ho-I will go to Team A, made of Makoto, Tsuki, Hina, Shiori and Asagi."

The group high-fived each other, except Asagi who was still distancing herself from them, feeling too tired to go any further. "The StuG III will go to Team B, made of Ryoko, Kamiko, Toshiko and Chie." The Chess Team was busy arguing about what openers to use during matches to really give any action. "The Type 95 Ha-Go will go to Team C, consisting of Natsuko, Teruko, Mitsuko and and and Haruko." That group cheered with an assortment of Soccer terms and puns.

"Next, the M6 will go to Team D, consisting of the 1st Years: Aoi, Eiko, Kyou, Mai, Ume and Ran." The 1st Years got busy celebrating with each other, some of them were holding hands and jumping. "Finally, the Panzer III Ausf. G will be crewed by myself, Mino and Yuki as Team E, for now anyways. Now, the last matter for today, we have to clean the tanks for the Techies to fix up, they've already spent all of today trying to get that darn Type 95, let's make things easier for them."

"Alright guys, the five of us will this tank cleaned, right?" Makoto got her team up to speed quickly and soon enough were starting to clean the Ho-I. But then Makoto noticed something, "Hey, has anyone seen Asagi?" She asked the others, but they all shrugged and went on with their duties as usual. "How convenient, she just disappears just as we were about to get working again…"

Over the next few moments was a series of getting all the water, hoses, soap and buckets they would need to clean these tanks. All the girls had changed into casual clothes so that their uniforms wouldn't get wet. After that was just a long period of washing off the exteriors and cleaning the interiors. Makoto and Team A had the one of the times doing so, the Ho-I was still in pretty good condition when they got it, all they needed was to just clean the exterior and dust/clean the interiors.

However, unlike them, Ryoko's Team B and Aoi's Team D had a much harder, similarly was Aizu's Team E which had to drain their Panzer III much like the StuG. Meanwhile Aoi's team had to clean an extreme layer of dust and molds allover the M6, with gas masks even, over their casual white clothing lended to them by the school. Ryoko's StuG had to be completely drain from top to bottom, and there was a lot of water vegetation that had to be removed, along with the occasional fishes which had to be rushed into a fresh water.

Lastly was Team C, who in all honesty, had the least effort in cleaning their tank. The cove that they found the Ha-Go had shielded from pretty much all weather, dust, vegetation and wildlife. All they really had to do was clean the tank and insides from what actually managed to get into the tank. Some water and dusting here or they, and much like the others, at the end of the day, they were completely finished with cleaning the tanks. "Nice work! It only took...the entire day, but we managed to get all these tanks retrieved and cleaned!"

"We!?" Minori and Yukiko were panting from all the work they've been doing as of late. Yukiko said her, "The rest of us have been doing all the work, all you've been doing is sitting in that lawnchair." She pointed to a nearby unfolded lawnchair parked in front of the Panzer III, "And the most work you've done is yell at us and the Techies! At the least, you could've not sat in front of us drinking soda."

"Yeah yeah yeah, Semantics, anyways, that ends today Sensha-Dou class, we're dismissed, don't forgot, tomorrow you have to get here around in the morning this time." Aizu quickly dismissed everyone to avoid any conflict and went off towards the Student Council Buildings, but not before telling a bunch of Technology Students that had just got there, what to do. Her subordinates each sighed and trailed off after her, they still had more work to do concerning the rest of the Program itself. Thus, only Makoto, Shiori, Hina and Tsuki were left, the Chess Club went to argue with each other behind closed doors, the Soccer Team had practice as per the course and the 1st Years just went their separate ways after realizing the only thing in common were their ages.

"Sooooooo…" Tsuki waltzed over to her new friends, "What are you guys doing after school?" and she asked everyone with a smile. "Did you guys want to come over to my place if you're free?" Today was abnormal because Sensha-Dou class was the last one of the day, starting tomorrow it would begin in the morning and become a daily thing for them, especially now that they had the tanks for it.

"I'm busy with some of my art projects at home, plus with the ones I already have to do, sorry Tsuki-san, but I just don't have any time." Hina bowed and looked up, "Speaking of which, I really have to go, goodbye everyone, see you tomorrow!"

"What about you Shio-san? Did you want to come over?" Tsuki looked like she was starting to get desperate at this rate.

"Sorry, but no can do, I already have plans with some of the other girls this evening, and my schedule is just filled up tonight, sorry Tsuki, but I'm just really busy." Shiori also apologized and soon she had to leave too, she waved goodbye as she ran to meet up with some other students.

"I suppose you're busy too, Makoto-san…" Now Tsuki just looked gloomy and depressed. But Makoto knew she didn't have anything to do after school, not really any friends or studies she had keep up with. As far as she knew, she was completely free for the night.

"Actually, Tsuki-san, I'm free for the night, I could easily free up sometime to hang out with you if you wanted me to." Makoto simply smiled as Tsuki started to give off her usual cheery and energetic self.

"Really? That's great! Come on, what're we waiting for, let's go!" She impatiently waited for Makoto to get her bag before just pulling her along out the gate and down the street. They didn't get particularly too far however, apparently her building wasn't that too far away from main campus, it was one of the first buildings they ran into and it didn't look all that big to be honest. When they entered, it didn't look like a normal housing at all, it looked more like a shop to be frank, they sold a bunch of merchandise about tanks and Sensha-Dou in general.

"Uhh...Tsuki-san...this isn't your room, right?" Though she was intrigued that this was an actual store on the ship. She was more worried that Tsuki had made a stop somewhere without telling here. She did inspect some of the magazines and looked at them, some of these were pretty old and looked more like memorabilia.

"Course not silly, I'm registered in the room right above this one, this is one of the first buildings on the ship, so it was mixed-housing with storefronts being groundfloor." She was busier looking for anything new than having them go straight up to her room, "Let's hang around here for a while Makoto-san, since we just passed our first day of Sensha-Dou, hmmm, this is a new issue." While Tsuki was picking out new items in the magazine section, Makoto decided to watch the TV mounted in the corner.

It appeared to be talking about the events for Sensha-Dou for this year, seemed like it just finished up the section about National Championships, the captain of Kuromorimine had just stopped talking. Right then, they switched to a segment about the other major event this year. There was mainly nothing of note for the majority of the time she spent looking at it, but soon enough something caught her ear. "This year, the Secondaries for the National High School Sensha-Dou Tournament has just received a new entry, after their crippling defeat in the 62nd National Championships, Sengoku Girls High School was not invited this year to the 63rd National Championships."

Makoto looked up too see that shining emblem, that crest that so signified everything for her. Even Tsuki, preoccupied with searching through magazines rather than having them go somewhere, took noticed. "Uh...Makoto-san?" She said in a very worried tone and expression. Makoto just waved back like she knew what was happening up on the screen.

"We'll now interview the new captain of the Sengoku Sensha-Dou team, Mikoto Shimada, and her thoughts on the circumstances this year." The screen cut to a rather stoic looking girl, with a striking resemblance to Makoto, wearing a deep taupe colored uniform with a cloak over it. With the microphone placed close to her face the reporter asked her, "So what are your thoughts about being uninvited to the Championships this year?"

"Well, I do think it's a shame that we would be unable to participate this year, but I also think that we will show everyone what we can really do at Secondaries as well." She answered in a calm manner and didn't even look back at the camera as she was bombarded with more questions.

"Are you going to let last year's defeat affect your this year at all?"

"No, I won't allow the unfortunate turn of events that occurred during our Semi-Final with Pravda to deter us from winning this year. It's like I said, we will show everyone what Sengoku's famed Shimada Style looks like."

"One last one…" The reported quietly mumbled in the background while flipping some pages, "Now, have you any word on the resignation of the previous Captain, your sister Makoto Shimada?" There was the question Makoto had been waiting for, she had known the past would've caught up to her now, what a funny way for it to be televised now. Mikoto clearly looked unsure about the question, breaking her calm and confident train of thought.

"My sister? I would like to refrain from answering that question. I'm sorry ma'am, but this interview is over." She quickly dodged the question and forced the crew to cut off the broadcast. Makoto didn't particularly expect that kind of response, especially from her sister of all people.

"Makoto? Are you okay?' Tsuki came up beside her and placed her hand on her shoulder with a rather worried face.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I don't know what I expected from watching that broadcast anyways." Makoto sighed and scratched the back of her head, "It doesn't really bother me anyways...what does bother me is what happens when my family finds out I'm beginning to practice Sensha-Dou again…" She sighed against and vibrated her lips, creating an annoying sound. "Oh well! It's fine, I still want to see what your room looks like Tsuki-san, at least before it's curfew, you guys do have that, right?"

Tsuki chucked, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that, come onit's through this door." and back up through a door in the corner of the room. The two girls traverse the stairs inside up a short distance before they reached her room. She then took out her ID in her pocket and placed it through the scanner to open the door. "Welcome to my home~!" They entered a brightly colored room decorated heavily with items related to tanks. Posters, figures, models, books and magazines, even documentaries and movies, were in every part of the room.

"Wow…" Makoto whispered under her breath as she looked around, even she wasn't this fanatical about tanks. "Where do you find the place to buy all this stuff, let alone even afford it."

"Oh! I work down at the store below as a part-timer, since I'm a student, I get paid and I have a nice discount too, so every so often, I come down there to buy something. Every so often turned into...pretty often, and now my room is filled to the brim with this stuff. But I don't mind, it's still something that I'm interested in." She cheerily set her bag down and sat down on her bed, before fully laying down on it as well. "So, what do you think~?"

"I think it's great that you've found something that interests you…" Makoto said while poking around the models a bit, "But don't you think this a little bit...too much? There has to be like, a few dozen models here alone."

"I suppose it's too much, but does it really matter? There's nothing else to spend money on here, besides food, water and clothing of course. And you can take it that I'm really into tanks, correct?"

"Yeah, I could say that you're into tanks, it that why you decided to enroll in Sensha-Dou Tsuki-san?"

"Yeah, it is why I enrolled in Sensha-Dou, I get to have good grades, get credits and actually spend time doing something that I've always wanted to do. It's like career shadowing, I think, sort of, I dunno." She sat back up and shrugged.

"Huh...oh by the way, how do you know Asagi?"

"Asagi Nasu? Oh...she lives in the room above mine, I swear she sleeps through half the school day, even while during class too, she always looks so tired it's almost depressing."

"So do you know why she signed up for Sensha-Dou? She doesn't seem like the kind of person who would enjoy it, or anything related to physical activity at all."

"She's explained that to me before that she thinks that it's easy credits for school, she wants to graduate as soon as possible. I don't know why she'd want to, but she seems successful, her grades are high, I guess, she's never been booted from a class for sleeping before."

"Hmm...hey, what time is curfew? I don't need someone knocking on my door and knowing that I skimped over the time."

"Actually Curfew is still a ways off but I'm assuming your building is pretty far away, we spent way too much time down in the store, but at least you got to see my room. And you know...the store too I guess…" Tsuki thought back to the way Makoto was so intently watching the new broadcast earlier. "It's a shame we didn't get to hang out for longer, I suppose we can just hang out some other day. Tsuki led Makoto down through the store and watched as she ran off into the distance, into the setting sun.

Tomorrow is when that instructor got here, Tsuki thought to herself for a bit, about what Sensha-Dou was really going to be like other than menial labor demanded by the Student Council. But at the same time, she also worried for Makoto, she must have had something holding her back since her days at Sengoku. And she especially worried about Makoto when her past truly caught up with her, it's been almost a year since that fateful match, and who knows what may happen tomorrow.


	3. Chapter III: Trial By Fire

Chapter III

Trial By Fire

* * *

"Our instructor is late…" Makoto thought to herself, the Sensha-Dou students were once again gathered near the same warehouse they were at the day before. But this time, they were just simply waiting for their assigned Sensha-Dou instructor to arrive. Come to think of it, Tsuki and Asagi weren't here either, which meant that their team was currently only at around half capacity.

"So many people late, it's not nice to make others wait." Shiori puffed out her cheeks in anger of the missing people. She was already tired from having to wake up so early, but for them to have to wait even after getting here was pushing her to her boundries.

"It's not that many people Shiori-san, as I can count, only Tsuki-san, Asagi-san and our instructor are missing. And I'm sure they have their reasons." Hina patted Shiori on the shoulder as they waited somewhere between patiently and impatiently. The other teams seemed preoccupied, only Ryoko's team who were arguing Chess Theory, were in earshot, but Makoto could see the the others were able to pass the time.

"Hey!" After a period of waiting, Tsuki came into view as she trudged along, carrying a sleeping Asagi on her back. "Sorry I'm late, I had some…"business" to take care of this morning and up until now." Despite seeming comatose, Asagi gave a thumbs up from Tsuki's back as she regrouped with her new friends.

"T-Tsuki-san!" Shiori was the first to notice her, "You made it! But why are you carrying Asagi-san on your back?" She pointed out the obvious question on everyone's minds.

"Oh that! Well, I found her sleeping on the stairwell, and I decided to carry her here myself. Even if it meant that I'd be yelled at by the Trudance Officers, she's our teammate after all~!" She still seemed unexpectedly cheery despite having carried another person on her back, even if she had one of the closer buildings to campus.

"Oh well, what matters it that you guys are here now." Makoto smiled as Tsuki let Asagi stand on her own now. She stumbled a bit but regained her balance, maintaining the thumbs up that she gave earlier. "You're a really interesting person...Asagi-san…" Makoto mumbled quietly to herself.

"Thank you, I pride myself on being interesting…" Asagi, with apparently pretty honed ears, responded in her usual monotone voice. "You're probably thinking, wow she has pretty good ears to hear me. Yes, yes I do have pretty good ears to hear you…" Her boasting was still delivered with the same monotone voice. Makoto stared at her, rather creeped out, but averted her gaze elsewhere. Because someone was approaching them from the distance, their instructor?

"Yo! Tokai Girls High School!" She approached in a rather neat looking uniform holding a bag of Fried Rice Crackers and eating from it. "You guys want some Fried Rice Crackers?" When she got into close proximity of everyone, she offered the snacks inside the bag she was jiggling around. "Just kidding." She cleared her voice and looked over the students.

"Are you our Sensha-Dou instructor?" Natsuko placed her hands akimbo and stared at her with an unpleased gaze.

"Yes! I am!" She placed her snack bag down and stood towards the students in a confident manner. "My name is Futaba Izumi! Captain of the Japanese Ground Self-Defence Force, and your League-Assigned Sensha-Dou Instructor." She said in a very commanding voice, different from the relaxed one she appeared with and picked up the bag again. "So you're the Tokai Sensha-Dou team?" She asked in the relaxed version of her voice.

"Yep! We have twenty students, five tanks and five teams!" Aizu in a confident voice rivaling that of Futaba's yelled out. "So, what are we doing today Futaba?"

"That's Captain Futaba to you…" She cut the confident Aizu's stance in half with her serious tone. "Just kidding." Then immediately went back to a relaxed state, "Well, you guys will be participating in a Mock Battle today between your five teams."

"W-what? A Mock Battle so soon? Aren't you sure we shouldn't just start with basic training first? What kind of instructor are you Captain Futaba?" Minori asked her with a menacing gaze and questioning the ethics of their instructor.

"Well. I need to know what I'm working with first, don't I? And besides, it'll give the girls and tanks a nice warmup before the actual training." She reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a folded map. Unfolding it with one hand by simply waving it around in randomly direction, she held it with both hands, one of them clutching onto it and the bag of Rice Crackers. "These are your starting points, you girls should be pretty familiar with the grounds so that's all the instruction you'll get." She ate another Rice Cracker and threw the map over her shoulder.

"U-uh, Futaba-senpai! Are we doing it like an elimination match then?" Makoto raised her hand and asked when Futaba pointed at her.

"Well, young one, it'll be a free-for-all, so yes, elimination." Normally things would go one, but Futaba took a closer look at Makoto. With a face that looked like she recognized her, "Well, I'll be...you're Motoko's daughter, aren't you? Send Shimada-senpai my regards I wasn't able to attend as a commentator in last years Tournament." The mention of Makoto's mother being a senpai of their Instructor made the others burst into conversation. "Oops, guess I wasn't suppose to mention that aloud…" She bit into another large Rice Cracker. "I suppose I really explain everything now, shouldn't I, is alright with you Makoto?"

"I guess, it doesn't really matter to me all that much." Makoto shrugged giving the cue for Futaba to start explaining things about Makoto's heritage.

"Well yes, I did just say Shimada-senpai when talking about Mokoto Shimada. While she's technically not my senpai, I consider her one anyways. She's the most skilled user of the Shimada-style of Sensha-Dou, the second most used style only bested by Shiho Nishizumi's own Nishizumi Style" The explanation didn't appear to help much as it only furthered the volume of conversation that was being made. "Hehe, didn't appear that I made much impact, did I? Anyways, Makoto, is your sister and mother doing well?"

"They're both doing fine, Futaba-senpai, how do you know of my mother though?"

"Truth be told, I'm not a student under the Shimada Style of Sensha-Dou, I'm was a student of Kuromorimine back in those days. I only knew her because she'd often give lectures on Armored Warfare Theory during my early days in the Military, despite the fact she wasn't enlisted at all. We became close acquaintances ever since then, almost like teacher and pupil."

"I see, Futaba-senpai, could we get on with the training today? I feel like standing around isn't going to do much."

"You want to get right into the action? Just like your mother...always so straightforward." She reached into her Rice Cracker bag and noticed it was empty, so she crumpled it up and threw it into a nearby trash bin as well as cleared her voice and straightening her posture. "Anyways! It'll be a simple procedure, go to your starting points, find your opponents and blast them with your guns, let's get started right away." She waved at Aizu, who up until then, was staring off into the distanced, once cued, she and the other Student Council members opened the Warehouse, revealing freshly painted and repaired tanks, to which no one 'ooed' about. "Alright, form into your teams and assign crew positions. If your team consists of three people, you'll need a Commander, Driver and Gunner. Four people, you can add a dedicated Loader and with five, a dedicated Radio Operator."

Makoto and her team regrouped on the top of their Type 2 Ho-I, "She makes it sound so simple…" Shiori groaned after climbing in, "But we're not even sure at what each of us are good at." Hina reassured her again and she continued with the spiel that Makoto really should've been giving. "So, there's four of us…" Then she noticed something was off, "Wait a minute...Four!? Where'd Asagi go!?" It seemed like Asagi, yet again, conveniently managed to vanish without a trace. "Fine then," Shiori huffed, "Makoto, if you don't mind, I want to be commander for now, you could be the gunner, Hina could be the loader and Tsuki can be Driver...I'll stick Asagi into the Radio Position for not being here later."

They laughed all off and realized that while in their little predicament, everyone else had figured out their positions and were already turning up their engines. Shiori let the others go in first and the came in herself, the turret wasn't too cramped, but wasn't what she was really used too. "Oooo, these controls are really different from that of a German Panzer, this will take a lot of time to get used too." Tsuki whined from the front of the hull.

"This tank is based on the Type 97 Chi-Ha and Type 1 Chi-He, it's almost nothing like a the Panzer series of tanks…" Makoto inspected the gun sights and cleaned them off with her skirt before looking through them again. They looked fresh out the factory, the range markers were just fine, if not just a little faded. "Hina, could you check and see what kind of ammunition we have stored in here?'

"Uhh...okay…" Hina looked in the nearby ammo rack and made inventory, "Looks like we have some… Armor-Piercing, High-Explosive, Illumination, Smoke and Hollow Charge...is that good?" She looked back with a worrying glance, she didn't know what any of it really meant in the terms of Sensha-Dou.

"Actually no, Hina-san, it's just perfect, now when I a specific round, I'll ask for you to load it. When you load it, use your knuckles and ram it in quickly to lower risks of injury." Makoto instructed her for a bit and then then was interrupted by Tsuki being able to put the engine into idle. She made some strange sounds upon the roaring of the engine, to the dismay of Shiori. "Tsuki-san...are you on a Sensha-high?"

"S-sorry, this is the first time I've done this outside of simulations…" She blushed, "And I get really excited, really easily too…"

"It's fine, it's normal for most first-timers to have that happen, we should really get out to the grounds, let's go!" Bracing in their positions, Tsuki got the tank moving, they were the last to leave and drove into the grounds, which were basically the nearby forests. In their final locations , each team were very well separated from each other with a bridge and ravine( no one knows why it's there) separating two major forested areas. Shiori's Team A, Ryoko's Team B and Natsuko's Team C were on the western side while Aoi's Team D and Aizu's Team E were on the eastern side.

From a tall tower, Futaba was looking at them through highly magnified binoculars and was supposed to start the battle. "Okay, all teams in place!" She said through a loudspeaker, "We're going to be making the Mock Battle a bit more interesting. The new teams are as follows. Team A is on one, Teams B through E are on another, battle is still elimination."

"W-what?" Makoto looked back towards the tower, her own crew was freaking out over the new circumstances. Even she herself was worried, but then quickly realized that it was just a Mock Battle, and that her opponents were also Trainees as well. "It's okay guys, even if we have the odds stacked against us, we can still win. The other teams are really spread out, let's get them out before they can regroup."

"Alright then!" Futaba leaned back on her chair and took another bag of Fried Rice Crackers seemingly out of nowhere, "Mock Battle, Commence!" But it was now that she realized something important she forgot to do earlier. "I probably should've given them maps…" Then she proceeded to eat some more Fried Rice Crackers, "Oh well, they can figure it out."

Tokai Sensha-Dou Mock Battle

* * *

 **Shiori's Team A**

 **Team A:**

Type 2 Ho-I - Medium Tank

Shiori Tachibana

* * *

 **Joint Trainee Team**

 **Team B:**

StuG III Ausf. F/8 - Tank Destroyer

Ryoko Matsuoka

 **Team C:**

Type 95 Ha-Go - Light Tank

Natsuka Honda

 **Team D:**

M6 - Heavy Tank

Aoi Sato

 **Team E:**

Panzer III Ausf. G - Medium Tank

Aizu Kishida

* * *

"You seem so confident Mako-san...but none of us have experience like you do…" Shiori squirmed in embarrassment of the pure assurement Makoto had instilled into them just then. "Couldn't you just take command instead? I'm sure you know how to do it better than I do…" Makoto glanced back from her gunner sights upon hearing mention of taking command, she thought of her previous experiences with that position and declined.

"No, no, no, that's not necessary, at least not until it gets serious, besides, you wouldn't want me in command anyways...I'm a lousy commander." She simply laughed it off and kept looking through the gunner sights. "Hey, Tsuki-san, keep down this road, and when you need to, Shio-san will tell you the direction you need to move." Makoto then turned around and started to instruct Shiori on the basics of commanding a tank crew while they still had time.

"Roger that~!" Tsuki was actually getting tired, the gears and steering mechanisms were starting to tire her out. The limited vision wasn't going to help her out either, she'd open the hatch above her, but didn't want to stop her driving just to do that. Meanwhile Shiori was also worried about the responsibilities of being a commander, telling the gunner where to aim, the driver where to drive, she clearly wasn't prepared for this when she took up the position.

"After all of this...I wonder where the other te-" Shiori attempted to say something clever about the other teams being lost. But was soundly interrupted by the sound of a nearby gun firing in sequence to a shell whistling by. "W-what!?" She swiftly took the initiative and looked out the opening in the cupola, which she didn't close. Right behind, was Natsuka's Team C and their Type 95 Ha-Go!

"Mitsuko! You missed the shot!" Natsuko looked down at yelled at her gunner, who whose position was given to Mitsuko. "Doesn't matter now, Teruko! Load another shell! Haruko! Keep on them!" The Ha-Go lurched from its position, as they were lying in ambush for Shiori's Team A.

"Roger that!" Haruko shifted the tank into a higher gear and they started to tail Team A's Type 2 Ho-I as Teruko took another 37mm Armor Piercing round from the ammo rack and rammed it into the gun breech with Mitsuko gaining a good sight on the rear of the Ho-I. A second 37mm round whizzed by the hull of the medium tank as the two tanks were speeding across a dirt road.

"Traversing turret!" Makoto took to the turret mechanisms naturally and turned it all the way around. Last time she had checked, the round that Hina had preemptively loaded was High Explosive. It was more enough against the Ha-Go, but the gun and sights were giving her trouble. This tank wasn't designed for firing on the moving, so instead of firing at the Ha-Go, when she pressed down, the round instead went into the dirt, exploding on impact and sending a mess of dirt, rock and smoke into the air. Which forced the Ha-Go and Haruko into a different direction as it startled her.

"Woah! Nice shot Mako-san!" Shiori had watched all of it transpire from the cupola and looked back down under at Makoto. She just smiled back at her compliment and nodded at Hina to load another round. But this time she signalled to load Armor Piercing, because she expected to run into either the StuG III or M6 next, the Ha-Go had been driven far off-course by her tactical shooting and they were on course to the nearby bridge. But their next threat came not too long after their previous encounter, "Tank! Right ahead!"

"It's Team B's StuG III Ausf. F/8" Tsuki panted out as she was the next best option until Makoto could traverse the gun around. "What do I do Commander!?" As the gap was being closed, Toshiko, who was assigned gunner, was zeroing in with the main gun. The tank was almost completely silent save for the sounds of the engine and the gun moving to get its mark.

"Turn right! Sharp right!" Shiori looked down and yelled at Tsuki to make a hard right down another road, but it was clear that she was unable to hear the yelling with all the noise. Suddenly, she kicked Tsuki in the right shoulder to signal a right turn, something that Makoto had taught her earlier, though she likely kicked a bit too hard. Either way, the signal was received and the hard turn was made, barely evading the shot that Kamiko put out just then.

"You missed Toshiko…" Kamiko lightly made karate chopping motions on Toshiko's head when the latter failed to hit their mark. She responded by elbowing Kamiko back in the gut, leaving her in pain. "Owie…." In the middle of combat, as opposed to personal conversations and Chess Meets, they referred to each other to their actual names rather than their personally assigned nicknames.

"Now now, no need to fight amongst ourselves, the only major landmark they could possibly be heading for is the bridge…" Ryoko sat with her right hand rubbing her chin, "Kamiko, get on the radio and tell the other teams to regroup around the bridge, we'll put Team A into check there…" She smiled and laid back in her seat, "It'll be a grand finale to our first battle…"

In the meantime, Makoto had a completely different plan in store, she knew that the bridge was too open and too limited for them to move freely. If they went there, it would simply just be a shooting gallery for the other teams. They needed to get somewhere so that she would able to use the Ho-I's 75mm gun properly. They entered an opening in the forest when Shiori suddenly yelled, "Tsuki! Watch out!", Makoto looked out the gunner sight to see a rather familiar figure walking towards them as well as the motion of their tank stopping just short of her. "A-Asagi-san!?"

"Hello…" Asagi, in her usual monotone voice, greeted them as if nothing was different was the situation. She instead casually climbed onto the frontal hull and squated down. "I see you guys skipped the basic training…" She tiredly stared at where the gunsight would be and tapped it.

"Where have you been!? We've been a person short this entire time! Why would you just disappear like that!? How do you think we feel!?" Shiori bombarded Asagi with a long string of her own questions and remarks about how teammates shouldn't abandon each other like what she did. Rather than respond, Asagi just opened the hatch above Tsuki who looked back with shock.

"Hey, there...you want me to replace you?" She ended the question with some actual emotion behind it as opposed to other phrases she would say. Tsuki didn't hesitate to retreat into the seat of the Radio Operator as Asagi replaced her in the driver's position and closed the hatch.

"Did you even listen to me? Do you even know how to drive this tank?" Shiori switched to talking down into the crew compartment and was still yelling at Asagi, although for different reasons. This time, she actually responded back, right after just looked back at Shiori with a cold emotionless gaze.

"Yes. I also know how to operate the hull machine gun, "She pointed at the gun Tsuki sat behind, "how to load the rounds," then at the ammo rack and Hina, "as well as operate the turret and fire the gun at accurate ranges up to around 400 Meters. If it was possible I could be a one person tank crew…"

"R-really?' Shiori looked at Asagi with shock and a newfound respect for the person she had just yelled at, right before that respect was shot down within seconds of being gained.

"No, just kidding...but I do know how to drive this tank…" She grinned and got the tank up to speed again with little effort from her physically. It looked as if she was glued to the vision slit she was given ahead when Tsuki looked over at her. "It'd be nice if you could stop staring at me…" She continued to operate the steering mechanisms with ease, "Where to, commander?"

"Well I want to cross the bridge to the other side, it seems that we're having a lot of trouble on this side already." Shiori crossed her arms and sat confidently, just to spite Asagi's attempts at getting to her.

"Not you...I'm talking about Makoto…" She put it quite bluntly how little she thought of Shiori's abilities as a commander, despite never seeing her in action yet. "Where to, commander?" She reiterated the question right after she put down Shiori's confidence yet again.

"This girl…" At this point, Shiori was grinding her teeth in anger with fists clenched.

"Hey, Shio-san...are you doing fine in the commander's seat?" Makoto looked over at her, rather worried and placed her hand on her shoulder. Shiori just sighed and lurched over.

"No...I'm not used to being such a commanding person, I don't see how Futaba-senpai or Aizu do it. Do you want to take over for me, Makoto?" She thought about it for a long while, her past was still haunting her of course. But her friends had been there for her in the past, and so she would have to be there for them.

"Alright, I'll be commander, while we're at it, could we move some of the other crew members around?" The other three members of the crew nodded while Asagi was still driving them who knows where. "Tsuki-san, you seem to be pretty capable with physical activity, just not endurance things like driving, you could be the loader, Hina, you seem like the kind of person who doesn't miss a detail, you should be the gunner and um...Shiori, you're pretty good at...small talk I suppose, you could be our Radio Operator."

Shiori stared at her with a menacing gaze, "Really? Smalltalk?" then sighed, "Alright, fine, I'll be honest, I'm not going to be any good at those other positions." The crew switches different positions, with Makoto occupying the center seat in the turret, with Hina one side and Tsuki on the other. Meanwhile Shiori sat down next to Asagi at the radio station near the front and looked over at Asagi, "I think I made a mistake…" Asagi reached over and patted Shiori on the head, much to her dismay, and then went back to her duties.

Now the issue is where they would go, clearly Makoto knew that the bridge would be a death trap. "If only I had a map...but Futaba-senpai didn't give me one, which means none of the other teams must have one either." Suddenly Asagi reached back and gave her a map of the local area silently. "W-where did you get this?"

"Don't question it...just tell me where to go…" Asagi had already memorized the area, considering she was wandering it the entire time, before the Mock Battle had even started.

"Head the wooded area that's in full view of the bridge, the one that's closest to our position, Asagi-san." Makoto intended to take them out while they're in the open, the bridge was located in an area that opened up, nice and clear for the 75mm on the Ho-I to hit its mark, granted that Hina could do so.

"Roger…" Asagi droned on and got the Ho-I moving, the movement of the tank was way smoother than when Tsuki was driving it. It had just occurred to Makoto how much better of a driver Asagi was, even when compared to her old crew. In fact, she was so focused on Asagi's driving that before long, they had reached area they intended to sit down at.

"Okay, so what's the plan commander~?" Tsuki was eager and already holding 75mm Armor Piercing in her hands. "The gun is loaded with Armor Piercing, we still have the remaining High Explosive, Hollow Charge and specialized rounds if needed."

"The gun's trained on the bridge, ready to fire." Hina sat still waiting for the plan to unfold. Meanwhile Shiori had been listening on the conversations of the other teams, since this was their first battle, they hadn't been set on different channels.

"They didn't even switch to a different channel Mako-san, looks like they're going to reorganize here and hunt us down as a pack…" Shiori had settled down next to Asagi quite well, mainly because she'd been paying attention more to the radio than she was the person sitting next to her.

"Alright, so here's the plan guys, we're in a good position, the trees mask us and the view we have is perfect. From what we know, they're going to be trying to catch us here...what they don't know is we're not going to be there. It's simple, they show up, we shoot at them, it'll take them some time to figure out where we are, so we have a window of time before we're fired on.."

"So basically, we're just going to catch them by surprise and um...snipe them off?" Hina placed her hand on the breech of the gun, "I think I could do that…" she was unsure as to what she could do. She was precise with a brush and pencil, but she'd never handled a gun before. But at the ranges presented here, all she needed to know was the basics of estimating range and firing velocity.

"Okay, if that fails. we're going to have to pull back into the woods and play cat and mouse with them, alright then! Operation...um...I got nothing, but Operation! Commence!" The yelling inspired everyone to do their best, meanwhile there was still nothing to shoot at. "This was a lot more action-packed in my mind…" Makoto sat with her head in the open waiting for the first target. As if right on cue, the other four teams appeared, Team B's StuG III, Team C's Ha-Go, Team D's M6 and Team E's Panzer III.

"They're not here!" Minori had been assigned gunner of the Panzer III and was waiting to shoot at Team for a long while. They had paired up with the M6 as soon as the match had started and started to fall under the command of Ryoko who was temporary commander for the Joint-Trainee Team.

"That's something I wasn't able to foresee…" Ryoko mumbled to herself and then grabbed the radio receiver. "All teams regroup on my side, we'll have to do this the hard way." The situation had changed, they would have to individually take them down in the forests rather than it be nice and easy at the bridge.

What they didn't know was that the entire time, Makoto had been watching them in the opening. "When they start to cross the bridge, Hina-san, you should fire." If they took out one tank on the bridge, they would be able to completely block off the bridge access for both teams.

"Roger…" Hina was tracking her targets carefully, "Ready to fire on command…" she kept traversing the turret to keep up with the M6 and Panzer III which were crossing the bridge to join Ryoko. They made the mistake of having the M6 go first, which severely slowed down the process.

"Fire!" Hina pressed down and the round was launched from the barrel, travelling quite a distance to its target. However, she had not accounted for target distance and the round fell short. "Traverse the gun upwards to compensate for distance, use the markers as reference if you have to."

"They fired at us!" The crew of Aoi's Team D was scared straight with the fact they were fired upon. A symphony of cries rang out as Ume was trying to keep the tank straight. It was such a large tank that it was hard to maneuver on the bridge, that fact that it was just a reinforced wood bridge didn't help it.

"Idiots…" Calmly traverse the turret, it did so quite slowly, what with having both a 76mm Gun and 37mm Gun in it. She was busier trying to gain a sight on the Ho-I, they had fired from the flank, but where? She looked through the gunner's sight and through scanned the bushes. "Where could you be…" She said to herself, just before seeing a reflection of the Ho-I was it was traversing.

"Fire!" Hina had taken the time to compensate and get the proper gun elevation this time around. The Armor Piercing round thrusted through the air and planted itself firmly into the side of the M6. Due to the very light armor on the M6, it was a knockout blow signified by a white flag popping out from the turret, just when Mai had gained her mark on the Ho-I too.

"Team D is Immobilized! Knockout!"

"Aww…" Aoi sat back in her seat, they hadn't even been able to do anything in the mock battle at all. However, the Panzer III behind them had more troubles to deal with. They were stuck behind the M6 as it went first. The only way out would be to reverse back, there was no room to traverse the hull all away around.

"Hit!" Minori yelled out as she sent a 3.7cm round hurling towards the Ho-I, the higher velocity carried it further. But it fell short and it slammed into the rock face of the ravine. There was no longer anytime to load another round and readjust aim as Hina hit her mark on the Panzer III, a shot on the side, centermass and another white flag.

"Team E is Immobilized! Knockout!"

"So this is the Shimada Style...or it's just smart thinking...interesting way of going about it…" Ryoko studied the approach that Team A had taken to ambush them. "Natsuko-san, keep your distance, we don't need you to...Team C's already gone hunting for them haven't they?" While Ryoko was busy analyzing the situation, Natsuko had decided to go head on.

"We're close to them I can feel it!" Natsuko was watching from the cupola for the Makoto. She then buttoned up because she had gotten hit in the face with branches a couple of times. "Alright, you know where they fired from, let's go get them!" The other three nodded and Haruko navigated her way over to the Ho-I's firing position.

"Roger that…" Haruko skillfully drove through the woods, but she couldn't shake the sinking feeling that something was off. Would they really just stay in one spot, she didn't know the members of Team A personally. But no one would really stay after they fired, would they? Her suspicions were confirmed when they reached the spot. "They're not here Natsuko…"

"Then where could they be?" Mitsuko impatiently crossed her arms and huffed. She was more than itching to fire the gun at least once at a target. Natsuko instinctively opened up the cupola and looked around.

"Behind us!" Teruko had been watching out, but she took a glance out the view sight for the rear machine gun. Right behind them, as Natsuko found out when she looked around in terror. The Ho-I was idle right behind them, and Makoto looking out from the Cupola right at her.

"Fire!" Natsuko buttoned up just as the round hit the hull of the tank, due to the weak armor values of the Ha-Go, it was registered as a penetration as the white flag popped out of the turret.

"Team C is Immobilized! Knockout!"

"Three down…" Through Makoto's quick planning, they were able to ambush two tanks and trick another. "Alright guys, so far so good, but now there's Team B and Ryoko…" She knew that Ryoko had to be smart and clever to had been put into command, plus she's heard that out of the four members of the Chess Team, she was the best.

"Amazing...looks like we're the only team left…" Ryoko analyzed the situation yet again, running the most likely scenario in her mind. It was clear that they had the superior firepower, but it was fixed and they were at a disadvantage against the Ho-I and its turret. However, due to the terrain, the StuG would be much easier to hide compared to the Ho-I and they would have a lot more time to prepare due to the distance between them. ""Chie-san, get us into the forest, we'll stick to the original plan, let's wait them out and see what they do…"

"Roger." Chie started to reverse the tank into some additional cover, behind some bushes and trees to mask themselves. With Toshiko and Kamiko ready with the main gun, carefully, Ryoko opened the hatch to the StuG and stuck her head up at just eye level. In the meanwhile, Makoto was busy hunting them, she was readily on alert because she also knew how easy it was to hide the StuG.

"Keep yourselves ready guys…" Hina was ready at the gun, her hands on the turret traverse and gun. Tsuki had another shell really, High Explosive because of the thick frontal armor the StuG had. Asagi was adamant on driving correctly and Shiori was...well she wasn't doing anything other than checking her phone because she didn't have anything to do.

However, they had fallen right into Ryoko's trap, in the open, without any knowledge of where the StuG was. Toshiko had all the time in the world, manually adjusting the aim to hit center mass, doesn't matter where they hit, any shot on the Ho-I would result in a penetrating shot and instant elimination. Makoto's tank was facing theirs, and the commander watching for the slightest sign of Team B. But just then, she was able to catch wind of the very tip of the StuG's muzzle break shifting the bushes. Toshiko could see the shocked expression of Makoto's face when she realized, "Checkmate…"

Reacting quickly, Makoto pulled herself under the cupola and kicked Asagi on the back and then on her left shoulder. Signalling that she had to hard turn left and did so with smooth transition. Switching to a lower gear and moving forward then a hard turn left just as Toshiko fired. The round just barely grazed the side of the Ho-I's hull when Ryoko knew the jig was up. "Forward! Try and get around them!" Chie revved the StuG into gear and accelerated it forwards towards the Ho-I while Hina turned the gun to meet them.

The StuG made a quick turn, drifting in the soft dirt around the Ho-I with Asagi quickly responding and turning in the same direction to counter it. She was close enough to knock the StuG's gun aside when Toshiko fired again, this time into the air rather than her intended target. "Load!" She yelled back to Kamiko who rushed another round from the rack through the breech. Now parallel to the StuG and pointed in different directions, Asagi moved the tank into forward to get behind the StuG and prevent it from firing again.

"Wow...they're really going at it…" Far away from the action, Futaba had been watching through her binoculars and eating Fried Rice Crackers. "Such mastery of the steering…" She commented on the skillful driving of both Asagi and Chie, both have which have been able to avoid knockouts because of it. Then she focused on Makoto, she wasn't lagging behind even a little bit with the situation, but Ryoko wasn't too far behind in her commands either. "They're certainly not treating this like a Mock Battle." She chuckled and fed herself some more Fried Rice Crackers.

She observed the StuG reverse and hit the Ho-I trying to get behind it, it appeared that Hina was have difficulties with rotating the turret on time. It's true that the Ho-I's turret wasn't all that fast nor was it very well stabilized, giving Ryoko's Team B a chance to take an opening. Chie quickly traverse the tank parallel to the Ho-I and moved it forwards and attempted to make a quick half-circle turn and get a shot off once at a far enough distance.

But Asagi and Makoto saw through their plan, "Block their gun!" Makoto yelled at her loudest down at Asagi. In the middle of the StuG's half-circle, Asagi had turned to meet them and quickly moved the tank forwards. The Ho-I hit the StuG just before it fully half-circled, and Ryoko realized the situation at an instant. because of the StuG's fixed gun position and the way the Ho-I was contacting with them, the Ho-I's side was blocking the gun from traversing any further to get a shot off. "Fire!"

Hina had just caught up with the action with her turret and lowered the gun down as Chie tried to pull away. But at that point, it was too late, as Hina unloaded a 75mm Armor Piercing round into the side of the StuG. The duel they had ended with a white flag popping out of the StuG's hull.

"Team B is Immobilized! Knockout! Team A wins the Mock Battle!"

Final Analysis

* * *

 **Makoto's Team A**

 **Team A:**

Type 2 Ho-I - Medium Tank

Makoto Shimada

Survived

* * *

 **Joint-Trainee Team**

 **Team B:**

StuG III Ausf. F/8 - Tank Destroyer

Ryoko Matsuoka  
Immobilized by Team A

 **Team C:**

Type 95 Ha-Go - Light Tank

Natsuko Honda

Immobilized by Team A

 **Team D:**

M6 - Heavy Tank

Aoi Sato

Immobilized by Team A

 **Team E:**

Panzer III Ausf. G

Aizu Kishida

Immobilized by Team A

* * *

Victory Goes to Makoto's Team A

* * *

In the aftermath the two crews of the last two teams met personally for the first time, Ryoko and Makoto met each other face to face. "Nice work Shimada-san, you managed to take us out with pure skill." Ryoko offered her handshake to Makoto who accepted it without hesitation. Her heart was still beating hard from the duel they had just had not but a few moments earlier.

"You too! Your planning and crew are both very skilled, it's an honor to had dueled you Ryoko-san." The two girls grinned at each other while the other members of their crews talked with each other. Particularly interesting was the exchange between the two drivers, Asagi and Chie, who just stared at each other for a long while before they shook hands. At the end of the day, all their tanks were recovered by R&D and the teams lined up for their instructor.

"Nice work! You all crewed your tanks exceptionally, especially for most of you, who are first-timers." Futaba winked at Makoto upon mention of the phrase first-timers. "Your Mock Battle has shown me what I need to focus on during training, but also that this group of students may be some of my best pupils starting out, training begins at the same time tomorrow, be prepared. I'm not going to hold back." She crumpled up the bag of Fried Rice Crackers she had just finished and threw it into the nearby trash can.

"Class is dismissed!" Aizu shouted and the members of the Student Council watched as the students walked off, including Futaba as she went who knows where. "Hmm, what to do for the rest of the day…" Aizu thought to herself.

"Ma'am, we should head on back to the office." Minori pushed up and Yukiko nodded, "We do need to authorize for 'our' Izumi-san to come back soon, shouldn't we?" Aizu instead shook her head and stood with her hands akimbo.

"Nah! You guys can go ahead and go on break for now. I'll do all that stuff by myself, you guys can go relax for all your hard work these past few days." Minori and Yukiko looked on in shock, their President had never been so kind before, "That's an order, enjoy yourselves today, social with the other Sensha-Dou students today too." She grinned and her two subordinates walked off in the direction of the school build as Aizu took a detour to the Student Council building.

Later that day, when she had finished all the paperwork for the day, including the ones for 'their' Izumi-san, she decided to contact someone. At least to prepare ahead for the Sensha-Dou, behind everyone's back nonetheless. She dialed a particular number and waited for them to pick up, "Hello? This is Darjeeling of St. Gloriana Girls High School, may I ask who this is?"

"My name is Aizu Kishida of Tokai Girls High School." Aizu answered the question in her most polite voice, which she only used when on official business because otherwise, no one would take her seriously.

"Mmm, how may I help you today?" She answered back.

"We have just reinstated our Sensha-Dou Program, and we were wondering if you were available for an exhibition match after our regulation training is finished." Darjeeling raised an eyebrow to the question, they had just received a similar request not but a few days back, and had already prepared for it.

"I'm sorry, normally we wouldn't deny a request like this, because our schedule is busy, it's funny, another school with a situation just like yours had asked days earlier. We've already accepted their challenge, so as you can understand, we sadly don't have the time for your school." But still, Darjeeling felt a little sad that she wasn't able to help this new school out, "But, would you want me to give you the number of another school I know? I'm sure the Sensha-Dou Captain there would surely accept."

Aizu listened carefully, "Sure." taking out a notepad and writing down the number and when finished said her goodbyes to Darjeeling. Looking at the number, she obviously didn't know, but decided to look it up in the official Sensha-Dou directories. After meticulous searching, she found the school, it appeared to be a branch-off of St. Gloriana: Lady Atkins Girls Academy. They were going to be their next opponents, Aizu was sure.


	4. Chapter IV: Today And Tomorrow

**Chapter IV**

Today And Tomorrow

* * *

Not but a few days after the initial Mock Battle Futaba had prepared for them, she started the Sensha-Dou team on a rigorous training regimen. Involving all the basics such as driving, gunnery and situational awareness. But in addition, she also taught how to do all of these skills with the highest efficiency along with other concepts such as camouflage, cover and use of armor.

Each team had particular niches that fit them, and Futaba knew that, she placed some of the teams on specific courses and exercises to make better use of their tank. Aoi's Team D crewed the M6, an American Heavy tank that was larger than any of the other tanks and with heavy firepower. It boasted a strange armament layout of a 3in(76mm) M7 Gun with a coaxial of a 37mm M6 as well as dual hull mounted .50cal(12.7mm) Machine Guns.

To make use of this layout, their gunner, Mai, was drilled to use the 37mm as both the ranging device and the secondary weapon. In the event she was forced to take action quickly, the 37mm would range the target with the 76mm being the main hitter, but for the most part, she used them in conjunction. "Loaders! Need rounds!" She spoke in a cold manner as Kyou loaded the 76mm Gun and Eiko the 37mm Gun. Staring down through the sight at a target located down a few hundred meters, she first fired the 37mm Gun hitting centermass. Then she adjusted the sight for the 76mm Gun due to the latter's lower muzzle velocity and heavier shell.

The second round hit the target dead on with her loaders getting right at work. Next she attempted to fire both guns at the same time, finding a median distance between the two gun elevations. The target presented to her would in technicality be smaller than most if any tank they would ever face and thus close misses were still considered a good hit. With a simple press on both guns, the two guns fired at closely the same time, both finding their mark at a close distance to the target. "Nice shot!" Aoi shouted as she watched Mai nail the target over and over again.

While they were being drilled on firing exercises, Ryoko and Team B were practicing long range exercises after an excruciating amount of work on Chie's driving that only did to make her even better. Particularly specified for long-range gunnery and tank identification using the Tank Identification Book Chie had allowed the team to use. Futaba made a particular insistence to this, saying that the StuG III Ausf. F/8 was the most powerful tank on the team but wasn't the most powerful in close range due to its fixed gun and weak side armor.

"Range...1,000 Meters…" Toshiko estimated the range of the fixed cardboard target. Chie had parked the tank behind a bush to simulate a common position they might find themselves in. Really, only Ryoko and Toshiko were in the tank, Chie and Kamiko had gone off to set up the targets themselves far down range. "Lasker-san, what tank did they give us this time?"

Up above, Ryoko was switching between her binoculars and the Identification Book repeatedly to identify the target. "Looks to be a Panzer IV...Ausf….Ausf...hmm...Ausf. F2." She had flipped through the many, many models and variants of the Panzer IV before guessing between the Panzer IV Ausf. F2 and Panzer IV Ausf. G, because the two looked alike. "They're facing directly horizontal to us, straight side shot."

"Okay...adjusting shot…" Toshiko shifted around the gun of the StuG III Ausf. F/8, the second to last model of the StuG III. It was armed with the StuK 40 L/48 gun, the same one used on the last versions of the Panzer IV and considerably more powerful than the previous StuK 40 L/43 was. "Ready to fire, at your command, Lasker-san." Downrange, Chie and Kamiko were doing the usual, discussing Chess Theory while sitting around in a ditch.

"I'm not saying that a good opener determines a match Magnus-san, I'm just saying it increases the odds of a victory. A strong opener limits your opponent's movement and makes it easier for you to pick them off." Kamiko was reasoning how effective a good opener could be to Chie. They had nothing to do, so something had to be said anyways, even then, the only thing Chie responded with was a nod. She was still peeved she had to hand over her Identification Book and wasn't particularly happy she had to do footwork.

In the middle of their conversation, Ryoko had apparently given the order to fire, as a blank training round weighted like AP pierced through the cardboard target and planted itself firmly into the ground near Kamiko. In the process it was able to scare her into going to fatal position momentarily. "Come on Fischer...we have to go set up another target…" Chie lazily stood up and started off back towards the main field to fetch another target that was prepared by Futaba ahead of time.

Watching them from afar was Natsuko and her Team C, who were tasked with scout training. Their Type 95 Ha-Go was the smallest and fastest tank out their entire lineup. Aside from that, they had already proven to be excellent in rough terrain. "Whew...they fired right near Kamiko...poor girl…especially considering she still owes me money…" Natsuko was watching with her provided pair of binoculars. Quite unusual, as each member of the time was given their own pair, Futaba even instructed them on out-of-tank reconnaissance work.

They were used to the prospect of running long distance, but this was a lot more complex. Having to be aware of your surroundings at all times, making sure you're not spotted or making enough noise to do so. Unsurprisingly, the girls weren't too keen on this subject. But Futaba had just shook it off, "Maybe out-of-tank recon isn't your thing, but at least you can use the Ha-Go.", she distinctly said to them upon the end of that session.

"Haruko, next position." She reported, they had just recently received a new comms system for each tank as well. This allowed them to easily communicate among themselves and to every tank as long as their radio was still operable. Also a neat thing, at least for Drivers, was that now the Commander or someone close didn't have to nail them in the shoulders to signal turns and movement anymore.

"Understood!" Haruko was quite excited by this, her shoulders were still sore from all the times it had happened in the Mock Battle and in Training. But at least from now on she could sit back and relax. Something Teruko and Mitsuko were all to used to, half the term they sat around doing nothing until their orders came up.

They proceeded along their pre-determined path with Natsuko ever so often giving them changes in the path. She was busy looking at the other teams train, but also looking out for Futaba. She specifically said that she saw them, they would have to start all over again. Little did they know, Futaba Izumi was actually busy chuckling at how bad Minori of Team E was at gunnery. "Wow...this is really bad…" She ate another Fried Rice Cracker watching her shots fall flat.

The other two did just fine, and Minori did well on flat targets, but when she was given the outline of a tank. Then the shells suddenly started to fall flat, or overshoot, or she just flat out missed at anything beyond 10-50 Meters. "You really are bad at this Mino…" Aizu was forced to witness the display of terrible gunnery from her commander cupola on the Panzer III. It was bad enough that Minori was already the loader as well, but the fact she wasn't able to shoot was going to be an issue. Yukiko had fallen asleep at the wheel, somehow through all the constant grief of Minori and her 3.7cm Gun, before being woken up by Aizu.

"Are we done yet?" She looked up at Aizu, Yukiko hadn't actually done any driving today, at most she had gotten them to the range. But aside from that, at the very least the other teams were getting something done. Especially Makoto's team, as it stood they were more or less being self-taught by Makoto rather than having Futaba rushing to their aid.

"No not yet…" Aizu took out the cupola at Futaba who was standing in the shade eating her snackfoods. "Instructor-senpai! The Student Council needs to have a short meeting, can we stop for now and do it in privacy?" She shouted at her from about a few meters away.

"Sure, why not." She mumbled to herself before leaving to tend to the other teams. Now speaking about Makoto's team, Futaba had actually sent to relax for a little bit. Not only because she knew Makoto's mother, but also because they've made a lot more progress and where essentially leaving everyone but Ryoko's team in the dust. They were off by the vending machines chatting it up.

"It's was nice of Futaba-senpai to give us a break…" Hina said while sipping from a can of green tea she had gotten. "I honestly think this is the hardest I've worked on anything in awhile, even compared to my art projects…" She chuckled and continued to drink.

"Yeah! She's a really cool instructor, she's smart and...and...lazy...and...she really just stands around eating Fried Rice Crackers now that I think about it…" Tsuki stared down at her bottle of Ramune gloomly. She was sitting on a nearby bench next to a sleeping Asagi curled up and taking over half the space. "She really isn't the instructor that I had honestly expected…"

"At least she isn't strict, I've heard other instructors aren't nearly as popular as she is...I'm surprised that we got her at all." Shiori raised her can of Barley Tea up towards the sky. Before looking down at Asagi, she had bought her a can of Iced Coffee but by the time it was dispensed, she had fallen asleep. "Futaba-senpai does remind me of a certain Driver though...just as lazy…"

Makoto leaning up against the wall the vending machines were placed, she had bought herself a simple can of Soda. In fact she had nearly finished half the thing really quickly. She thought to herself about how her mother would make her only buy bottled water ever and how free she was now that she was at different school. "What about you Makoto-san? What do you think of Futaba-senpai?" Hina looked over at her and posed the question.

"Oh me? Well...she says she knows my mother pretty well, though I never actually knew her all that well. But at the least she's letting me practice in the Shimada Style rather than the Golden Standard of the Nishizumi Style."

"Speaking of which, what's the difference between the two anyways?" Shiori nudged Shimada's arm to signal her question. "Does it really matter which we use if we win the match anyways?"

"There's a BIG difference between the two, or at least that's how everyone sees it anyways. The Nishizumi Style is aggressive, relies on intense training, heavy tanks and is very rigid. The Shimada Style was made to be the antithesis, it's more like a way of thinking. To use the best strengths of your tanks and leave yourself able to adapt to the situation at a moment's notice."

"That seems complicated...is that why you don't see many people use it?"

"Yeah, I suppose that it's hard to use, larger schools don't need to worry about that kind of problem, so the Nishizumi Style is more popular with them, which means they influence the smaller schools to follow suit. But they both have one glaring flaw, they were made by proud families, so that meant Direct Challenges were to not go unaccepted… conceited people to fight conceited people, that's the natural cycle…"

"You don't seen so keen on this stuff Makoto-san, are you okay about speaking to us about this?" Hina seemed worried for Makoto, she had suddenly got worked up with the mention of two styles.

"N-no...it's fine, I just don't like to talk about this kind of stuff, you see the kind of effect it has on me." The four girls stared at each other in awkward silence, Makoto was staring into the ocean in the meanwhile. So far away from the Mainland, yet so beautiful, the vast blue ocean was never something she paid mind to. She never paid mind to much things before now that she thought about it.

Before she could break into more philosophical thinking, Futaba had arrived to break up the silence. "Yo! Team A, how you guys doing?" She grinned and ate out of a Fried Rice Cracker bag while walking towards them. None of them really answered back so she just kept on talking, "No need to be silent guys. Anyways! Makoto, Aizu wanted you and the other Commanders at a meeting in the Student Council building."

"Eh?! I wasn't told about this meeting."

"That's because she asked to me to tell you a half hour ago, and I actually forgot about it until now. You should really go, it seemed urgent." Makoto stared at Futaba who had this cheery expression on her face while eating. "No seriously, you should really go, like, right now."

"Eeep!" She quickly bowed goodbye to everyone and ran towards the Student Council throwing away her soda in the process. The sun was still shining bright as the other students stared at Makoto who was running across the open. Some of them snickering among themselves. As soon as she entered the meeting room, she apologized to everyone, "I'm sorry for being so late!" They stared at her, they were in the middle of their briefing apparently.

"It's okay Mako! I didn't expect Futaba to remind you anyways, just take a seat and we'll continue." Aizu gave her a thumbs up and winked as Makoto sat down at her seat next to Ryoko and the other Commanders. "Anyways, continue with our meeting Mino." Gesturing her subordinate to continue with what she was saying.

"Anyways, as I was saying, our…'generous' president has taken the time to…'selflessly' arrange a 'fair' match with another school with the next week." There was a look of intrigue among everyone's face, especially more so when Yukiko dimmed the lights and Minori started the projector.

The first slide showed an image of a school emblem, showing a tea kettle with a Brodie helmet over the handle and steam coming out of the spout. The background was a light blue and the whole image was presented inside an escutcheon."This is Lady Atkins Girls Academy, they've been kind enough to participate in an Exhibition with us next week. I've already put in an executive order to bring us to port within that time frame." Aizu was standing in the far back and crossing her arms.

"Right...moving on then, they will be our opponent in an Elimination-type match, the rules are simple, immobilize every tank on the opposing team. The battleground will be Tokai and the surrounding lands." Minori proceeded with the rest of the slides, "According to our 'generous' president, they will be being eight tanks to battle with us. The first are their five Matilda , these are thickly armored infantry support tanks but are armed with 40mm Guns, do not underestimate them because of their speed or size."

"The next will be this Valentine , this is their secondary command it, it isn't as thickly armored as the Matilda, but has a much superior gun, a 57mm High Velocity, it's capable of immobilizing any of our tanks at almost any range or angle. And their final tank, commanded by the Captain, is the Valentine , armed with a 75mm Medium Velocity gun, the same type used on the American M4 Shermans, it too, is capable of immobilizing almost all of our tanks, do not take either of them lightly as well." Minori then pushed up her glasses, "Or you'll find yourself a quick knockout."

"Er...um…so what's the plan!" Aoi quickly blurted out, quite loudly at that.

"Well we were hoping our double aces could figure that out, Makoto? Ryoko? What are your thoughts?" She gestured to the two who were sitting next to each other, they looked at each other then back with slight concern. Neither of them could really be considered aces, especially Ryoko who had only had one battle thus so far.

"Well their tanks are definitely slower than ours…" Makoto started, "and they're also pretty clumsy in cityscapes. Perhaps we should lure them into a trap some sorts." Ryoko added onto her stratagem.

"Right, using combined firepower, we could render their armor moot. Between the AP of the M6 and StuG as well as the HEAT from the Ho-I, the frontal armor of the Matilda will be nothing. The problem is where do we lure them? The outlying lands of Tokai aren't too keen for such maneuvers…"

"Ooo! Ooo!" Natsuko raised her hand high and proud and the two allowed her to speak. "We can lure them into Tokai itself. It's allowed within league rules and we'll have the advantage of knowing the place ourselves!"

"That's actually… a pretty good idea." Even Minori recognized that it was the only chance they had to best Lady Atkins in combat. "But we're going to need bait, would you be willing to do that Natsuko?"

"The Soccer Team is always willing if it helps!" Natsuko placed her fist in her palm and grinned.

"No. It's too obvious, if we do it with the Ha-Go, they'll know it's a decoy. How about this...let me go with the Ho-I, we at the least have the firepower to hit back. We'll draw them into the town, where we'll split them up, we'll fight our battles individually, and prevent them from working with each other."

"Good then! Well, that basically ends our meeting, now we can all go back...to more training...of course…" Aizu hesitantly ended the meeting ,which meant they all had to go back to Futaba and her training. Undoubtedly she was likely just bumming around eating Fried Rice Crackers. "Oh yeah! Before I forget, because I'm so 'generous', I've decided to give you guys some positive encouragement. If we win, we're going to go to a hot spring, if we lose on the other hand...we're going to be doing the Anglerfish Dance at the Summer Festival instead of the poor 1st Years" With a single fell swoop, she was able to put everyone in shock as they left the room.

"The what!?" When Makoto had relayed the news to her friends they freaked out equally the same. Even Asagi took the effort to wake up, but trying to actually get up only put her back to sleep. "I swear, I'm going to that little Aizu and te-" Shiori stopped short of actually finished her sentence and cleared her voice. "Okay! I've decided! We have to win this match, doesn't matter how, as long as it prevents us from doing the Anglerfish, it'll make me happy."

"W-what is the Anglerfish Dance anyways? Is it really that bad?" Makoto, not being from Ibaraki, was confused on the text. She didn't know any of the customs or any of the particulars of any of the Prefectures this far up north. She, like the rest of her family, were from Aichi, so anything deviating from that region, she would completely be lost on.

"The Anglerfish Dance is this really silly, and so bad it's catchy, dance that some town down south called Oarai made up. It caught up...really fast, and spread all throughout Hitachinaka, Naka, Mito, all the big cities until it firmly planted itself here in Tokai and beyond." Even Tsuki looked sorta erratic about the subject as well.

"And yes...it is that bad Makoto-san…" Hina rang in on it as well, "I hear that it's impossible to erase the shame of having to do it. Which is why they always have the 1st Years do it, I just barely dodged it last year at the draw…" Makoto could visibly see her hands shaking while holding her Green Tea.

"We have to win! I don't need that embarrassment to haunt me for the rest of my life!" Asagi unusually put some actual tone into her voice and raised her hand pointing at the sky to signify her ambitions. Rather than actually trying to get up herself and doing anyways.

"I see...well we have another week until that match, and we do have to wake up pretty early...at like...6:00AM just to get everything set." Upon mention of the time they had to arrive, Asagi sat right up and shook her head rapidly in disagreement. She wasn't a morning person, as if that wasn't painfully obvious.

"Okay! It's been a good time serving with you folks, I no longer care if I must do the Anglerfish Dance, but I shall not wake up at 6:00 AM. Human Beings, i.e me, cannot physically wake up that early, it is impossible and unnatural."

"B-but Asagi! Who'll drive the tank?" Tsuki spitted out her ramune when Asagi suddenly straightened up. Asagi was the only one of the five that were able to actually drive the Ho-I with any skill. The closest was Makoto, but she had to be the commander, anyone else wasn't that proficient.

"You'll just have to deal with it." She didn't seem like she wasn't going to change her stance on the issue any time soon.

"H-hey! We'll wake you up! And by we, I mean Tsuki-san, but still!" Shiori was begging for Asagi to continue Sensha-dou. Mainly because she didn't want to have to do the Anglerfish Dance, but also because they weren't really friends yet but really could be in the future maybe. "So please at the least have the effort to wake up early in the morning Asagi-san!"

"Yeah! W-wait what?"

"Sorry, but I have no reason to wake up at 6:00 AM, everyone should still be sleeping at that point which means I get to sleep too. I'll do the Anglerfish Dance, just still Aizu to stuff it later!" Asagi took the Iced Coffee Shiori had bought her, at this point it wasn't really chilled anymore, and started to leave. "I'll see you guys outside of Sensha-Dou, sorry for this…"

"Asagi-san...I have heard about what Aizu does to people who do things like this…" Hina started to speak in a rather dreadful tone unlike herself, "I think she does something far worse than making you do the Anglerfish Dance, if I recall, she does something on a more personal level…" Asagi looked back with with a disturbed that asked the question for her. "In your case, she might just take the credits...and tear up your class recommendation right in front of you." That finally broke Asagi, she bit her lower lip and clenched her fists before punching the vending machine, which she wasn't really allowed to do in the first place.

"Finefinefinefinefine...I'll do it, and then when I graduate I'll beat up Aizu…" She went back to her usual monotone voice and sat back on the bench. "We should get back to training soon...we've been on break the past hour or two at this point…" And she 'dutifully' reminded everyone that they were overdue for returning back to training of course. So training they did, sorta did, because Futaba was still really unprofessional so it was really more like summer camp with tanks. This went on for a week, by then the ship was starting to near Tokai's port for the Exhibition.

Makoto had woken up pretty early that day, she checked her phone for Hina and Shiori's texts that they were ready. They certainly were, but on the other hand, the opposite was true for Asagi and Tsuki. She decided to dress up quickly and check up on them, suppressing her desires when she had passed through the shop under their rooms. Tsuki's door was closed, but she did see some light at the top of the stair case. "Wow, this really is like brushing a cat…" She heard them speaking, more Tsuki than Asagi, and found that the door to Asagi's room was wide open.

"Oh Makoto…" Asagi instantly noticed her walking up in the stairwell, "You thought I wouldn't be awake, didn't you? Well jokes on you, because I can be three-fourths asleep, it counts and you can't do anything about it..." she had something to be proud of for once. Actually being awake at anytime before noon had to be some kind of miracle granted by the gods.

"She's making me brush her hair...with her cat brush...the cat's on my head isn't it?" Now that Tsuki had mentioned it, Makoto noticed there was actually a brown cat on her head, it had looked like her actual hair the first time around. "Please get it off...I don't need cat stuffs on my head when we're done." Looking around Asagi's room, it was even blander than hers. Solid White walls, a simple mattress for a bed, a closet in the corner and a kotatsu in the center, that was about it.

Asagi was sitting on top of the kotatsu while having her hair combed, "You guys realize we have a half hour until it's call time right?" While Tsuki was fully dressed and ready, Asagi was the exact opposite, it looks like having her hair combed was the first step in her morning.

"Half hour…? Oh darn…" Slowly Asagi stood up and walked into her closet, shutting the door. Before either of them could respond, or Tsuki getting Asagi's cat off her head, she walked back out completely ready. "Okay, let's go…" Even her hair was perfectly combed, much to Tsuki's dismay as she just spent a lot of time combing it her way. "Stop standing around staring at me…" She didn't even spend time to look at them, already in the staircase leaving the floor.

Makoto and Tsuki left as well, when she closed the door, Makoto noticed that there wasn't an electronic lock for the door. Instead it was traditional key and knob, if there even was a lock at all. "Weird…" She mumbled to herself before following after the other two. Following with their assumptions, the three had walked all the way to the brand new designated garages for their tanks. For a long while, they had been using the same warehouse for their tanks, but now they were in a new building all by themselves.

She did find it weird how no one besides them were in the streets coming up to campus. Not even the shops and bakeries were open, their doors locked and blinds closed up. It was off-putting and eerie to say the least, but at the least she had Asagi and Tsuki, even if they weren't too talkative this early in the morning. Even at campus there wasn't anyone, it was abnormal to see a school campus without any students to traverse it. "Hey Guys!" Shiori had noticed them walking towards the garages and waved at them wildly. Even she was surprised that Asagi was able to keep her promise and meet them here.

"Hey!" Tsuki had ran over first to hug her with Hina smiling behind them both. "I managed to wake up Asagi too, and she forced to comb her hair even though she magically makes it well kept somehow." Tsuki grinned and and nudged Asagi, whose expression seemed like she wanted to kill everyone because of how early she had to wake up today for the match, which is likely what she wanted to do. There wasn't much of an introduction, everyone knew what they had to do, the morning proceeded with the Student Council simply opening the garage doors, each tank had their own space with some extra rooms just in they got more tanks.

"Moment of truth…" Makoto thought to herself as she let the others get into the tank first before sitting in her seat. Between Hina and Tsuki, with Asagi to the right of her feet and Shiori the other side. "Let's head towards the platform." They proceeded to lead the rest tanks towards the loading platform. The tanks weren't exactly going to fit on the normal walkway so they improvised with the cargo loading platform. Even if nothing was going on and off due to the late moment redocking, they still had to wait for the paperwork to go through with the dock workers. Due process she supposed while sitting around in the cupola.

She did however, just happen to look off into the ocean just in time to see a huge schoolship approach the dock as well. It was much, much, much larger than their schoolship, which based off of the Japanese Carrier Shokaku. "Whatcha looking at?" Curious as to why Makoto hadn't made any movement yet, Tsuki decided to look out the rear hatch to see the schoolship as well. "Oh...so that's what they meant when Lady Atkin's schoolship was a scaled up HMS Illustrious…hey you know what, I feel really small and insignificant now…" She responded just before going back to her seat and closing the hatch to allow Hina to pat her on the head.

Looking across the rest of the port, even the other dock works were amazed as to the size of this ship. "Oh poopie, I don't get to see the big schoolship." Shiori fussed about not being about to see the giant HMS Illustrious because there wasn't an accessible hatch in the front of the hull. She puffed out her cheeks and threw a minor tantrum. After the due process actually got processed, the tanks were allowed on land for the first time, just in time for Makoto to see Lady Atkins's being docked. Surprisingly, the ship was somehow about to fit, even though Tokai was just a small town with a port. Rolling down the streets, the town was all set up for the Exhibition.

Somehow, word had gotten to here pretty quickly, nothing interesting ever happened in these small towns. So even an Exhibition Match would spice things up, it seemed more like a festival than anything, but that was likely because the Summer Festival was fast approaching. "Hey Makoto, I have a duty for you to fulfill as as the team's newly appointed Captain." Aizu was able to contact her headset privately, through black magic likely, "Before the match starts, I need you to represent our school, I'm sure you know this already, but that means all the formal procedures." Normally, the Captains from each team, alongside the other Commanders, would before the match. The Captains would shake hands, signifying their sportsmanship and the start of the match.

"Gotcha." She replied as cityscape turned into ruralscape, they were able to look at the field ahead of time due to their early arrival. Personally, Makoto had never actually gotten a look, while her friends and the other crews were busy setting up and relaxing before the match started. She decided to survey the place for changes to their strategy, the main portion of it still included Tokai itself, but she wanted to know if there was a place they could fight beforehand.

From her position, she could see that there was a depression in the land near the starting area. It bordered between Tokai and Hitachinaka, but she bet she could lure them easily through there. Off in the distance, there appeared to be a pretty tight pass, a good place for an ambush, if time permitted it, the distance between here and there was extreme, nothing a bit of stalling could fix. That pass led into forest and eventually into the very outskirts of Tokai. From there they could maneuver freely, with Lady Atkins's infantry tanks having a hard time trying to keep up.

It would be on the spot, but she had some confidence in her team. Even if Lady Atkins's was numerically and technologically superior to them. It was a matter of who had the better tactics, it almost always is. "Makoto!" Apparently Tsuki was dispatched to go get her back for the match. "It's time! Lady Atkins's tanks and crews have lined up and are ready for the match, let's go!" Following her back to the starting section quite a distance away, the fact Tsuki was able to even find her was something else. Arriving on site, she saw Aizu confidently posing in front of a massive banner she had the print shop print out for the match.

Equally matching the banner happened to be a large British Flag on the opposite side with the Emblem of Lady Atkins next to it. Looking at the crews on that side, they were dressed up in what appeared to be full battle dress for this occasion. They had nice neat black knee skirts with a red short jacket over a black long sleeve and black long boots. There were a few variations here and there, caps, hats, scarves, mufflers, maybe even Garters or Kneesocks. But the base outfit largely remained the same for all of the crews. Their tanks were equally as nice looking, clean, well maintain, the Matildas had a nice coat of Celadon and the two Valentines they had there was in a nice shade of Jade.

Midway through the starting area, Tsuki waved goodbye for Makoto to join the other commanders. Arriving in the middle of the field between the two teams, she stood opposite of Lady Atkins's commanders, between Ryoko and Aizu. There were five representing Tokai and eight representing Atkins. "Alright!" The match official spoke through a micro, cameras and speakers had been set up all over the place, with a large viewing screen in multiple places for anyone who wanted to watch. "Captains! Commence the formalities."

Looking around, Makoto walked forward just as she did the previous year, with confidence in each stride. There she met face to face with the Captain for Lady Atkins, she went by the nickname of Jasmine, after the tea. "Let's have a good match." She looked at Makoto through her brown hair, and the two exchanged handshakes. They bowed to each other before heading back to their tanks, a highly abridged version of official formalities. But now came the moment of truth, Makoto thought to herself as she entered her Type 2 Ho-I and planted herself firmly in the commander's seat. Now came Tokai's first match against another school, Lady Atkins Girls Academy would be their first ever opponent.


	5. Chapter V: The First Encounter

Chapter V

Our First Trials

"You girls ready?" Makoto looked back at her friends, the two teams had spread out across the field. Their tank was placed in the center of the Tokai Tank Formation and they were waiting for the match be started by the officials. More or less, they were sitting around waiting for their little war to break out.

"Always ready ma'am!" Tsuki replied in her usual excited self, Asagi groaned out her approval and Hina nodded her head. "Come on Shio-san! Say something, you've been silent this entire time." Shiori was busy texting on her phone to her friends who were watching in the crowds. School had been put off that day just for this event, her trance was broken when Asagi elbowed her.

"Huh? What? Oh yeah, I'm ready, Radio Operator is always ready you know?" She chuckled before being put back into her phone trance. It was crunch time now, match could start at any moment. Makoto breathed in and out heavily, but in steady pace as well. She sat herself carefully in the commander's seat and looked out the Cupola. Moment of truth she supposed, no going back now. Elsewhere, the announcers and officials had set up their little table, and the girl in charge of announcing the start of the battle cleared up her voice and got up to her stand, adjusting the microphone before beginning her message.

"The Exhibition Battle between Tokai Girls High School and Lady Atkins Girls Academy will now begin shortly. Please remain in your seats and do not venture into the marked battleground area. This battle was brought to you by our sponsors...of which we have none today apparently." The girl looked back nervously at the other match officials, who gave her the thumbs up to begin the match. "We will now begin the Elimination Match. Battle start!"

Tokai Exhibition Sensha-Dou Battle

* * *

Tokai Girls High School

Team A:

Type 2 Ho-I - Medium Tank

Makoto Shimada

Team B:

StuG III Ausf. F/8 - Tank Destroyer

Ryoko Matsuoka

Team C:

Type 95 Ha-Go - Light Tank

Natsuka Honda

Team D:

M6 - Heavy Tank

Aoi Sato

Team E:

Panzer III Ausf. G - Medium Tank

Aizu Kishida

* * *

Lady Atkins Girls Academy

Team Tea:

Valentine XI - Infantry Tank

Jasmine

Team Coffee:

Valentine IX - Infantry Tank

Cream

Team Biscuit:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Scone

Team Custard:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Flan

Team Cake:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Chelsea

Team Pudding:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Eve

Team Pie:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Mince

Team Tart:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Gypsy

* * *

"Alright!" Makoto spoke over her headset to the other tanks in formation. "The plan is simple, I should've marked the location on each of the maps Futaba-senpai possibly gave you." She had little faith in the responsibility that she had given to their instructor before the match had started. "Our plan is to ambush and skirmish them there before we retreat into the town to rout them. What followed was a series of acknowledgements from the other crew commanders and their crews. For Makoto and her crew however, they parted from the formation to fulfill their job.

"So we have to distract them…" Hina breathed in and out heavily, one hand placed on the gun breech and the other on the trigger. She was extremely nervous, the Mock Battle they had a while back was the only combat experience she had. Even then, with all the training and conditioning, the Type 99 75mm Gun eluded her mastery. Perhaps it was just too rough for her delicate and precise way of going about things. But there wasn't time to dwell on her issues, they had to show that Tokai wasn't going to just crumble under the pressure.

"Oh don't worry, between Makoto-san and all of the work we've done together, the girls at Lady Atkins won't see what hit them!" Tsuki was still motivated and wasn't showing any signs of stress. Of course, the opposite could be said for her fellow gunner, and technically Shiori as well, but she was still locked in her technological trance and noisily tapping away next to Asagi. "All we have to do is to lure them into our trap, once we spot their formation and the other tanks are in place, we can start to take them out one by one until we win."

Though the thought of having to do the Anglerfish Dance was still lingering in the cramped atmosphere of the tank. "Right! Well, let's not get too hasty yet, the match is still up for both sides. Our first job is to just find them first, we'll get into luring them and ambushing them later." Makoto, with a straight face, reassured them of the plan she and the other commanders were able to formulate. Their first objective was clear: Find the Lady Atkins tank formation. They were going to do just that, their lone Type 2 Ho-I traverse dirt and grass alike searching for their opponent's formation.

Lady Atkin's had been placed on the opposite side of a valley-like depression in the dirt. Theoretically, this terrain would offer their infantry tanks the most advantageous situation as most of Tokai's tanks wouldn't be able to get close enough to penetrate their thick armor. At range, their rounds would lose penetrating power for distance, most likely enough to simply ricochet or just dent the armor they were presented with dealing. However, at close range, they would be able to circumvent that, with careful maneuvering and strategic positioning, armor would mean nothing.

The Ho-I was nearing the most likely avenue of approach Lady Atkins was taking, Makoto could clearly see the trees were thinning out soon. "Stop here Asagi." She ordered the tank to be parked here, she wanted to see those tanks herself. Lifting herself from the cupola with both hands and out onto the ground. She was followed by Tsuki who wanted to do the same thing, more out of curiosity than tactical planning like Makoto was wishing to do. "Let's see what we have here...we can still change our tactics if they're not coming through here, but if they slip through, we'll be in a world of pain."

Her intuition was correct, looking through her set of assigned binoculars, she spotted the formation of Infantry Tanks ahead of them. All eight of Lady Atkin's tanks were face approaching their position in the valley below. The Matilda IIs were placed in a Hexagon Formations: two at the front on either flanks, one on each flank and two placed at the rear. Both Valentines were placed side-by-side in the center of the formation, and the whole lot of them were placed quite loosely from each other. "I can see the dust they're kicking up from here!" Tsuki exclaimed, it was true, the tanks ahead of them had quite a smoke cloud behind them, likely because they were moving at around cruise speed.

But Makoto wanted to know how to lure them, the pass the ambush was to placed at was all the way on the other side of this valley. She pondered the thought when the two got back inside the tank and back into their positions. "So...what's the plan?" Hina looked over at Makoto as soon as she sat back down. There was no way to fire and maneuver with that many guns pointed on them in open ground. But there was another way, a more rash and direct approach: a more risk one at that. Hina could could see the idea flicker in Makoto's eyes and she just smiled, "I'm ready for whatever you order us to do." Their commander responded back with with a wild grind.

"Okay, Asagi! It's time for our finest hour." It took a while for the concept to register with the other two crew members. But they were able to grasp it, with Tsuki nodding affirmatively and Asagi a thumbs up without looking back. It was about now that Shiori had snapped out of the trance and was ready to be proactive again. She demonstrated this by blindly agreeing to the plan Makoto had in store for their time!

"Yeah! I'm ready too!" Shiori looked around the the compartment of the tank, not actually knowing what was going on or what the plan really was. It was only when Tsuki gave off a worried look that she realized that what she just agreed too must have been bad. "W-what's with the looks?" She asked before quietly cursing to herself in the little corner of the hull she was placed in. "Crap! What did I just get myself into!", she huffed out before Asagi started to get the tank moving again.

Meanwhile, the girls at Lady Atkins were blissfully rolling along, unaware that they were being watched. Jasmine, the commander for the Valentine IX Team Tea and Captain for the whole team, was leaning back in her commander chair. She was minding her own business until her Radio Operator: Lavender, passed her a cup of tea. "Would you like to do the tea routine like Darjeeling says we should always do." The tea routine followed that at least the lead tank's crew would always be drinking tea, except the driver of course.

Jasmine scratched her head a bit, she didn't particularly appreciate the practice, but if Darjeeling said they should, they really should consider doing it. "Thank you." She politely thanked Lavender and took the tea from her, one hand on the cup, the other on the small plate it came with. However with one taste, she soon regretted her decision, "Anise...what kind of tea did you buy during your tea run this morning?" She looked over at her tank's gunner.

"I didn't do the tea run, I gave that responsibility to Mint over here." The red-haired loader pointed her thumb over at the light-green haired loader: Mint. "So Mint, what kind of tea did you get this morning?" Anise crossed her arms in suspicion, Mint was the newest member of their crew. So despite the fact Anise was responsible for getting the tea, she just gave the job to the new girl.

"I got all of the teas you put down on the list: Assam, Jasmine, Darjeeling and Oolong!" She panicked and pulled out the list Anise had given to her that morning. She gave it back to her to check off, "You can see yourself, I got everything that you told me to get this morning!" She blushed intensely and kept to herself while Anise looked over the list.

"Why would I put Oolong...none of us actually drink that stuff…" She then realize that the list read: Assam, Earl Gray, Jasmine and Darjeeling Oolong. That was a single variety of Darjeeling rather than being two different teas. "You idiot! That says Darjeeling Oolong! Not Darjeeling and Oolong!" She slapped the girl on the back of the head before checking to see what other kinds of tea they had packed today. "Why is it all Oolong! You didn't even pack any of the other teas in here!"

"Anise, stop abusing the poor girl, so we have to drink Oolong today, it isn't...that bad...okay perhaps it is, but we have to look on the bright side of things." Jasmine smiled got up to look out the turret of the Valentine. "It's a beautiful day! We can't be arguing on a day like this! It's just not right." It wasn't as if she wasn't wrong, blue skies, partially cloudy, rays of sun shining across the fields of green grass. She raised her arms out to embrace the sunlight coming on her, with her second-in-command: Cream, looking at her with an embarrassed face from the Valentine IX across from them.

"C-commander…" The tanned girl with short white hair looked at her, Jasmine took a while to notice that she was being stared at. But she decided not to look back, better to not have Cream ask any questions. " I still can't believe this is the girl they chose to take her spot…" Cream was a third-year at their school, the previous Sensha-Dou Captain had graduated last year, and the one she was staring at was elected to take her place and name.

"Beautiful Day!" Jasmine shouted, "Good for some Sensha-Dou." She chuckled nervously, she didn't really have to address everyone like that, she thought as she sipped another awkward cup of Oolong Tea. "So, how about...this weather?" She chuckled nervously again and looked off in the distance. "Don't judge me…" She mumbled just as soon as Cream looked away.

"Commander. We have an unknown vehicle coming towards us, can you please identify it from up there?" Chai, their driver, had relayed a message from one of the Matildas in front of them. "Once you identify it, please give our formation an order to follow." Chai was one of the older students like Cream, the driver for the previous Jasmine and experienced in how the chain of command went.

"Alright then, on it." She set her cup of tea on the roof of the turret and took to her binoculars. "Right…" Jasmine fumbled around with the binoculars around her neck before finally being able to bring them up to her eyes. "What could we have coming towards us…" Before she could get a good spot on what it actually was that was charging towards them, a round flew right past at low velocity. Only one tank in Tokai's arsenal had a low velocity gun: it was Makoto's Ho-I. She realized it too late before the Gun Tank zoomed right past them and their formation.

No one had fired because no order was given to do so, that was how the chain of command worked. Looking behind her, Jasmine watched as the Ho-I kicked up dirt and dust forming a great cloud behind it. Before realizing that the round flying past her had actually knocked over the tea cup she had been using and it laid broken on the ground below. "Commander! Your orders!?" Chai repeated the question again.

"Well what're you waiting for!" She turned on the headset and in response, Lavender switched the frequency to all crews. "All tanks! Turn formation and chase down that Gun Tank!" Gripping onto the sides of the Valentine turret, Jasmine watched as all tanks in their formation turned face and started to move in the direction of Makoto. "Move up to Flank Speed! Put those engines at maximum power if you have to!" Soon enough, they started to close the range with Lady Atkin's Infantry Tanks being much quicker than they seemed. "All gunners! You are cleared to fire!"

Unbeknownst to Makoto and her crew, Mint had loaded the 75mm in the Valentine and Anise was started to get a bead on them. Much like all the other crews, with Cream's 6pdr Gun and the other Matildas' 2pdr Gun. "Why did I agree to this!?" Shiori was busing cradling herself in the corner to help them in anyway. She received a much deserved bonk on the head from Asagi who both looked back at her and did it while driving straight as well. "Hey…"

"She's not wrong, Shiori, I need to you contact the ahead team and tell them to prepare for the ambush. As many shots as you can before they close and then get out of there towards the town, especially tell them to disperse afterwards!" Finishing her order, Makoto slowly peeked out of the tank's hatch to see if they were still chasing them. Conveniently, she was answered with a barrage of mixed caliber fire. One of the light guns just barely grazed the side of the turret, prompting Makoto to slowly come back down. "Not doing that again…" She thought to herself.

After a long traverse down a bumpy grassland, most of which was accompanied by inaccurate fire by the tanks behind. They neared Makoto's planned Pass on the right, "A right here?" Asagi mumbled to herself, making sure no one actually heard her. Behind them, Jasmine watched intently as the Ho-I in front of them back a right turn into the pass on their side. She narrowed her eyes and tried to figure out what Makoto could be planning.

The Pass would greatly limit their movement, yes, but by that extension would also limit Makoto's movement as well. It was a trap, an ambush, plain and clear, but there wasn't anywhere else to go. If they wanted to get them through any other route, they would have to clear the entire valley and thing roundabout, too much wasted time. "You've forced my hand...well done…" She smirked and lifted the receiver to her communications set. "All tanks in formation, proceed to column formation and move down that pass ahead of us." In response, hers and Cream's tank slowed down allowing a Matilda to go past them. Two other Matildas formed a line ahead of them and then Cream's tank fell in line behind Jasmine with the remaining three Matildas forming the rest of the line.

"What do we have loaded?" Makoto looked over at Tsuki, she wasn't aware of what round they had loaded during the start of the match. They were more busy trying to spot the enemy formation than deciding what rounds to use. If everything had gone right, they didn't need to even fire a single time during this first part, so it didn't matter at that moment in time.

"Um...High Explosive?" She placed a finger to her chin and thought about it real hard. As for what round she had actually loaded, she wasn't too sure at that, mainly because she had just taken a random round from the rack and put it in. "Why do you ask? I don't think I'm able to take the round back out...or at least I don't know how anyways." She chuckled and scratched the back of her head.

"Hmm...Hina, fire into the air so that we can switch to Smoke Rounds." She instructed Hina to fire the gun, so that they'd empty the breach for a different ammo type. Since Tsuki didn't bother to learn how to unload a gun, or if the howitzer they had was even capable of that. While they were busy figuring that out, the rest of Tokai's tanks had comfortably placed themselves on top of a ridge overlooking the pass. They had good sightlines, and the a forest into town was planted directly behind for a speedy escape.

To keep themselves busy, they had relegated themselves to more fun activities, the girls of Team E were busy reading or doing paperwork while Aizu ate. Team D was busy playing with Hanafuda Cards with Team C discussing their upcoming soccer game with a neighboring town. Team B, as per the usual, were keeping themselves busy with chess games, one between Ryoko and Toshiko and another between Kamiko and Chie. "H-hey! That's a round that was fired!" Ran, while waiting for her turn to play with the Cards, had just hung around in the Commander's Seat.

"Hmm? Could it be the enemy? The only thing we got from Makoto's team was that we should get ready." Minori closed her book shut and pushed up her glasses, prompting Yukiko to hurry and finish the paperwork sooner. Aizu on the other hand wasn't so sure that it could really be the enemy, especially because she hadn't finished the dango she and brought with her.

"You sure? You'd think Makoto would give us a heads up in advance. She's at the least that smart." Aizu simply laughed it off, "Could be her crew messing around, we're all new after all." She stated, despite the fact that Makoto's team had taken apart all four of the other teams during their Mock Battle. Ryoko, pausing her chess game with Toshiko, looked out the StuG III's hatch.

"Hmmm...no." She simply put it, "That round's travelling at low velocity, the only tank with a gun like that in the entire match would be Makoto's Ho-I." With that, their theory was sorta correct, but it also meant that Makoto was also traveling towards. Likely with Lady Atkins at their backs firing at them. "Alright guys, we should get ready, Makoto doesn't do things without their reasons." Ryoko returned to her crew compartment and shook at head to signal they were to stop playing. "Also," She moved her queen into a position that completely cornered Toshiko's king, "Checkmate." She grinned as Toshiko begrudgingly came back to the gunner's seat.

"Incoming." Natsuko tugged on the collar of her shirt when she heard the forward report come in. "It's Makoto's Ho-I!" The message was being relayed by Ume who was hearing everything from Mai. Mai was waiting to fire the gun for once, a few rounds from both guns before they would have to pull back. "But it looks like the entirety of Lady Atkins is behind her!" There was the punching blow, they'd been lured into the pass and now the ambush might just work to an extent.

"Everyone!" Makoto's voice suddenly came up over the radio waves, the real part started now. "Get your shots off now, before pulling back, they're all here, try to hit something." The distance between Tokai and Lady Atkins couldn't have been any more than a hundred meters, optimal firing distance for them, but also troubling due to the difference between Tokai's Guns and Lady Atkins's armor. Makoto's Ho-I pulled to the side, revealing the column of Infantry Tanks before the gunners. A symphony of mixed caliber fire was being directed towards them, ultimate inaccurate despite Tokai's high ground and stationary position.

"Captain, they're firing at us." The Matildas at the front relayed back that they were being fired on, but the effects were minimal. "Our momentum is still strong, we can still wipe them out here if we need to." Lavender glanced over as Jasmine, who was sitting quietly and calmly despite the fire coming around them. "Your orders, Captain?"

"Pursue them further, they're likely to fall back once we close the distance some more, begin firing once we're at around fifty meters." The order was plain and clear, even so to Tokai, as the Infantry tanks started to go into staggered column and fire back. "Chase them as far as you need to, as far as I know, there isn't a way for them to rightly hit any of us frontally." And this fact was becoming well aware to the girls from Tokai, even if they hit a them, the shot wouldn't even go through, simply glancing off or ricocheting. Makoto took notice of this as she watched the firefight occur with her in the middle of it.

With the crossfire becoming more and more intense, she took to the radio, "All tanks, fall back to the town at once. We'll engage them on our own terms." She relayed the order forward and results soon came in. One by one, the tanks on the ridge in front of them turned their hulls to to the forest and accelerated towards the town. "Asagi, get this tank up to its maximum power." The Ho-I's engine roared even more and they climbed the ridge ahead of them quickly, and under heavy fire as well.

"Hah! They're retreating. Must have realized it was pointless to fight us here." Anise crossed her arms, she had almost hit Tokai's massive target of a M6 twice. "Captain, we should pursue them further if this persists." Lady Atkins had the advantage at the moment, heavier armor, better guns, and more tanks to use.

"That's what we're going to do, we'll chase them to the ends of the world if we have to." The Lady Atkins tanks stopped firing once Makoto got out of range and they formed back up in a single column. Looking behind her, Makoto could see that they had just started to climb the ridge, grass turned into tree as they transitioned into the forestscape. And then soon enough, they'd reach Tokai as well.

"Okay, you guys know the plan. Split up all over Tokai, and don't bunch up in a single area. We'll have to do this the hard way, take them down one-by-one." Team A was the last one out of the firefight and the last to take over cover now. As Lady Atkins slowly crawled behind them and she caught the first glance of the town, she shouted over at Hina. "Hina-san! Tsuki-san! Cycle fire Smoke Rounds!" Cycle Firing meant a rapid firing and reloading drill during their training with Futaba. But with Smoke Rounds, it was much simpler, Hina fired the Smoke Rounds into the ground ahead of them with Tsuki just loading another. Cycling their rack of Smoke Rounds and then breaking off into the town by themselves.

It was quite effective, as when Jasmine and her formation arrive, there was a huge smoke cloud awaiting them and no sign of Tokai's tanks. At this point, all five of Tokai's tanks were located in vastly distant locations from each other and waiting for a Matilda or Valentine to run into them. They had forced her hand again, because Jasmine hesitantly gave out the order, "All tanks, split into pairs of two, Tea and Cream, Biscuit and Custard, Cake and Pudding, Pie with Tart."

"Roger." The commanders of all the other tanks commented and split into their respective groups to hunt down Tokai separately. The real part had just started back at the ridge, but now was where the action really started. Tokai Girls High School and Lady Atkins Girls Academy. Five tanks against Eight tanks, but now, the girls were on their native land, and this is where the last shots will be fired. Both captains of these teams, worriedly looked around them, neither Makoto or Jasmine knew how Tokai was built, but now was their Moment of Truth.

* * *

Sorry for no recent chapters, school has just ended recently and I got caught up with Finals and preparing for Finals in those last few weeks. I had actually prepared and finished this chapter a long time before school had ended. But I didn't have too much time to refine nor even upload it until recently these last few weeks. So this is a chapter long overdue for you guys, I'm truly sorry for the wait. But I sadly have to say that the current release time for the next chapter is just as unknown, as the days trudge by, so keep in there guys, this is a Story I simply just have to finish. Sorry for the wait, again, and thank you if you've stuck with me throughout of all this.


	6. Chapter VI: The Trial's Climax

Chapter VI

The Trial's Climax

As the Battle shifts back and forth, it was clear that the remainder of it was going to be one huge waiting game of cat and mouse. Outnumbered and hiding, Tokai was going to take this battle as slowly as they can. They had dispersed themselves unevenly across the entirety of their town, or at least in areas defined as part of the Battlegrounds. "We're going to have to whittle them down one-by-one, Shiori, have everyone enforce radio silence for the rest of the match." Makoto didn't want to risk being exposed here and now, and certainly Lady Atkins was looking for any sort of edge over them right now.

"So what's our role in this?" Tsuki turned to her to ask, "I mean, what're we supposed to do, are we just going to wait around with our stubby gun for some poor Matilda or Valentine to cross our paths?" It was clear that she didn't think they were playing an active role, even if they had just charged the entire enemy formation not but a few minutes earlier.

"Hmm...what do we have for ammunition, aside from the ones we normally use." Upon her request, Tsuki jammed her hands into the ammo boxes and racks to see what they had to use. In total, they had the usual Armor-Piercing, High-Explosive and HEAT Rounds. But they had used some of their Smoke Rounds earlier to mask their escape as well.

"What could this be…" Tsuki picked up a piece of ammunition and started to read off of it. "Liquid Incendiary...huh...that's interesting." In that particular rack she was looking in, she spotted a few more of the same rounds, in addition to other ones with colorful names like: Hollow Charge, Illumination and the strangest, Vomit Gas Projectile. "Vomit Gas? Hey, Makoto-san! We can use any of the rounds we find back here right?"

"Yeah, they should be checking our ammo before the match and approve it themselves. So we should be able to use anything we can find in our ammo rack, what'd you find anyways?" Now Makoto looked back to make sure Tsuki wasn't just fibbing, and attracted the attention of the crew minus Asagi.

"Oh! I found some...special rounds to use against our friends at Lady Atkins, maybe. I don't really know how much we can really use these to be honest." While they were plotting on what to do to their enemies. Said enemies were hot on their trail, following whatever track marks or clues they left behind. Two such tank were Commander Chelsea's Team Cake and Commander Eve's Team Pudding.

"Keep your eyes open, they could be anywhere at this point, you hear that Eve?" Chelsea and Eve weren't the best of friends, mainly due to an incident regarding the latter being unable to cover their back reliably. "Or are you going to slack off again, like you did we when faced Hellenic Crown?"

"Don't worry, it's fine, besides, I didn't mess that badly." Compared to Chelsea, Eve was much more laid back and relaxed. Being the 4th and 5th Tanks of their Exhibition Lineup, they were always paired up together. Sometimes, just so Jasmine had something to laugh at, being the friction between the two.

"They were using 4pdrs! Four-Pounders! Half of them didn't even have cannons and were stuck with Machine Gun Type As!" That incident wasn't too kind to them, as they were in this exact situation when they were attacked from the sides by some Vickers Mk.E Type Bs fielded by the Greek School: Hellenic Crown High School.

"Shush. Your anger is only going to make it easier for them to hear you and ambush us." Eve brushed aside her long golden hair as they argued. "Besides, where are they even going to attack from? It's not like they have anywhere to do it." Just before she started to chuckle, a shot at point blank wrecked the side of her Matilda II much to the unsurprised look of Chelsea.

Adjacent to Eve's Matilda was Ryoko's StuG III Ausf. F/8 and the rest of Team B, parked neatly in a quaint little Ramen Shop. "Makoto! One tank down, withdrawing for now." She reported, squatting down due to the low ceiling of the building and the height of her position. "Thanks for letting us use your shop Mr. Hashimoto!" She turned and thanked the own of the shop, who was cleaning his kitchen.

"No problem Ryoko, just make sure you and your friends come over this weekend so I can beat you at Igo again before you head back out to sea." He waved goodbye as they backed out the rear entrance of the shop, and stared as they left behind large track marks. "Well, I really should have thought this out better." Before long he hung up a makeshift banner outside saying that his shop was vital to Tokai's first Exhibition Knockout and that the gun residue and the track marks in his shop were authentic.

"What a nice man…" Ryoko sat down in her hull and looked to her left, finding Kamiko with her mouth full of Ramen she had recently bought while they were waiting in the shop. The two exchanged a very long gaze at each other before the latter turned around into the side of the hull.

"Don't judge me Lasker-san…" She embarrassedly mumbled. Something similar was happening with Eve when she had to report her own knockout to Jasmine. When she squatted back down into the hull, she found the disappointed gazes of her crewmembers. One of them, the Gunner Caraway, spoke up.

"You shouldn't have talked so much…" The silence in the hull was unbearable after that. With one tank down and Chelsea stranded behind lines, the other Lady Atkins tanks had to hurry up the pace and and use their numerical advantage against Tokai right then and now. Now was the pivotal moment in the battle, and Jasmine knew she had to seize it now.

"All tanks, you are to double your search efforts, we need to end this match quickly." She reported over the radio before huffing and taking a few deep breaths. She met the worrying gazes of her crew who stared at her in disbelief. "What? What is it guys? Is there something in my hair? My uniform?"

"Commander, you're never this energetic…" Lavender spoke up first, her eyes glaring through her hair. It's true, normally, Jasmine was very calm and collected, as were everyone else that had held her position as the Sensha-Dou Team's Captain. They often compared her to someone like Darjeeling from St. Gloriana.

"Yeah! But it's a welcome change though, I'm not too big of a fan of that whole facade you commanders put up." Anise nodded her head in approval, "I'm in favor of the new Commander!" She raised her hand high, at least as high as the fighting compartment allowed her.

"Guys guys, calm down, I'm fine, it's just that...this battle is getting me really riled up." She pointed her thumb in the general direction as where they thought Tokai's tanks were. "That's the Shimada Kid we're talking about over there, we've never made it close to even beat Sengoku High in our entire history. Really gets the blood pumping does it?"

"I-I supposed…" Mint was all confused about the situation, because she was new of course. She poured another cup of Oolong Tea and gave it to Jasmine. "I-I'm still really sorry about the Tea Problem we have." Jasmine looked at the cup of tea and then back at the girl across from her.

"Ah! It's fine." She ruffled Mint's hair, "It's not like this stuff is going to kill me anyways." Then she took a long nice swig despite it being just a tea cup, before spitting it all out onto the floor of their compartment. "Ah who am I kidding. This stuff is going to kill me at this rate…"

In the meanwhile, Commander Flan's Team Custard and Commander Scone's Team Biscuit were hot on the trail of one of Tokai's Tanks. "Scone! This direction!" Flan pointed in the direction of the track marks left behind by some kind of lighter tank and waved her two-tone blonde and caramel short hair around.

"Roger that, we'll back you up." Scone was tired of chasing Tokai around without any result. Now was their chance to truly have some action during the match. The tracks led them to a small building on top of some stairs. "Up there!" She spotted Tokai's Team C and their Type 95 Ha-Go, with Natsuko waving down at them.

"We're up here!" She waved and gave them a large grin as their tank moved forward and away. This left the two Matildas down below pondering on what to do next, as getting up those stairs would be a difficult feat for their tanks.

"Well, we could always take a detour around, we'll run into them eventually, right?" Flan was twirling around her short hair trying to figure out what to do. Suddenly, Scone's Matilda went ahead of them and up the stairs slowly. "S-scone!? What are you doing! That's too dangerous!"

"Ah bugger off! You're too scared to go up here, just watch our backs this time will you? What's that light tank even going to do to our frontal armor anyways?" Slowly her Matilda II climbed up the slope of the stairs, their tracks just around to keep them going. Scone's driver, Crumpet, was quietly crying to herself that she had to do something like this, while the Gunner: Cookie and the Loader: Muffin were scared out of their minds. "Brace yourselves, it's a bumpy ride.

Slowly and slowly the Infantry Tank moved up the stairs, much to Flan's horror as she was forced to standby and watch. She had informed Jasmine but was told to let her go. "Those are some idiots up there..." Flan's driver, Egg, mumbled to herself. The Matilda had finally met the peak of the stairs and was about to touch onto even ground. Just then, Scone realize that waiting for them wasn't the Ha-Go, but Tokai's M6 with Mai already at the gun controls aimed at their lower plate.

"Super Electro Speed Diving Punch!" She unusually shouted out excitedly as both the 37mm and 76mm Guns fired at near point blank towards the Matilda. Upon impact, it left the Matilda flying backwards and down the stairs as Scone barely had time to button back up.

"Mai-chan…" Kyou had never seen Mai so excited in the past before, even during their Training Match. Similarly, she was also a Fan of Kamen Rider Stronger so before Mai could even turn around and question the situation, she hugged her intensely. Even when Mai threatened to kill her if she didn't let go.

"But why Kamen Rider Stronger's Rider Charged Up Punch?" Ume looked over and asked Ran, who just shrugged. With Scone's tank at the bottom of the stairs and Flan rushing over to assist them, this left Lady Atkins with six tanks remaining, practically an entire search team down.

"Yush! We got them reeling now! That's why you don't mess with Tokai!" Aizu was throwing a little party of her own considering the recent turn of events. Tokai had all of their tanks in good condition, and with Lady Atkins still scrambling to recover and find them all, the odds had more than fully turned towards them.

"Oioioioi! That's not good…" Commander Mince of Team Pie looked behind them, they were the furthest within Tokai at this point. "We're having enough trouble trying to find them already, and now this happens?" She gritted her teeth and slammed her fist onto the roof of her turret.

"It's Scone and Eve, it should be expected, and nothing much is lost from those encounters anyways." Commander Gypsy of Team Tart sat in her Matilda opposite of Mince. "What we should be doing is focusing on trying to find them and end the match like Jasmine said." Just as she finished up, a 37mm round flew right past their turret.

"Commander! Behind us!" Gypsy's Loader, Treacle reported on the origin of the shot. Behind the two Matildas was the M6, followed suit by Aizu's Panzer III and Natsuko's Ha-Go, a very large force approaching them quite quickly.

"Their entire force!?" Mince reacted sourly, "Gypsy, we move now!" the latter nodded and both Matildas started to accelerate to their max speeds. "Commander! Three of Tokai's Five Tanks are pursuing us, they appear to have regrouped and want to finish us off for good! We need backup!"

"Well that's no good, Jasmine, we should move now to intercept their forces while we still have most of ours." Cream added into the conversation between all the remaining crews of Lady Atkins. "But in the end, it's your call, Commander."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know! Mince, stay calm, we're moving to your locations now!" The two Valentines were on the Main Road of Tokai, the plan was to lure them out into an open confrontation where Tokai would lose due to their inability to properly engage heavy armor. But now that plan was out the window, or was it.

"What are they doing!?" Makoto had not given the order to regroup and attack. In fact she hadn't been giving any orders as of late. She allowed the individual teams to direct themselves in the current confusion. "Shiori, please tell, what have you been hearing over the radio?"

"It seems like Aizu's the root of all this trouble, she's told everyone to hunt down those wild dogs. Wow, that's some language." Shiori chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck, "It does seem like Ryoko-san's team refused to comply though, so at the least we have someone else with us."

"Makoto-san, what do we do now?" Hina looked over with a question of her own. "We've lost control of the team at this point, and we can't really do much else either." She was certainly right, they were practically a two-tank team now, what with Aizu's contingency going all out.

"Don't worry Hina-san, we've done our work here, all thanks to Tsuki-san and her new shells, let's get moving and continue what we were doing before." They left the scene just moments before Jasmine arrived on scene, and discovered their handy work. The entire partition of that road was completely engulfed in flames. "I hope they enjoy our gift…"

"What the heck is this!?" Anise couldn't believe what she was witnessing from her gunner sight. The whole road ahead of them was on fire, at least a meter or two of effective flame layers. "Commander! How do we get through this without breaking the tank engines or killing ourselves!?" Jasmine herself was taken aback by this, she hadn't expected Tokai to field this type of tactic.

"All tanks, we're redoing the battle plan, we are all to move towards the secondary rendezvous point, the new plan is to regroup and hold out." The two Valentines turned around and started to move back away, moving towards another area where they could regroup properly. "Did they have some kind of incendiary round to cause this much fire at once?"

"Commander! This is Mince from Team Pie! We've been knocked out!" While Jasmine and her team were busy dawdling about, the pursuit between their two stranded Matildas and Tokai had eaten up their Pie. All Jasmine could do was grit her team and continue to direct her tanks forward.

"Incoming!" Suddenly, a round hit the ground far in front of them as far down the road, Makoto's Ho-I had gotten ahead of them. The round spewed liquids all over the ground that instantly were set ablaze. "S-so that's that they were doing…" Chai couldn't believe her eyes. A second round followed in the remaining area of the road and cover their escape completely.

The two Valentines returned fire, inaccurate at that range and missed Makoto completely. "Hina-san, Tsuki-san, Smoke Rounds if you would please." Before they could get a bead on her, the Ho-I launched a smoke round down at the ground throwing a massive cloud of smoke to mask them.

"Tch! Hiding again?" Anise slammed her fist down on a nearby contain to express her rage. "Commander, we can brave those flames no problem at this speed, just go right through and take them out once and for all." It was true, at the speed the two Infantry Tanks were moving at, they could completely negate the flames and prey Makoto, however, it would prevent from going to the aid of their allies at their rendezvous point.

"No, the safety of my crews come first, Chai, it's a right turn here." Jasmine stared at the smoke cloud with intent as they rounded the corner, surely Makoto was having some sort of enjoyment out of this. It was in fact the very opposite, she was in fact having the worst time trying to convince Aizu to call off the attack.

"Aizu, it's a bad idea to attack now, even if we're even, they're more skilled than us, and they will have some kind of plan against this, the hiding was our entire advantage against them. Challenging them in open combat is practically suicide." Was Makoto's entire argument against the full-out assault. But Aizu wasn't too convinced, especially with how the match has been going in their favor up until now.

"Listen kiddo, you may be our ace, but I have two eyes and I can see that we're gaining momentum, just you watch we're going to wipe them off the map!" The four British Tanks were now nearing their rendezvous point, as all their roads were leading into one open area. Three Matilda IIs and two Valentines were all that were left, but Jasmine knew exactly what to do with that.

"All tanks! Hadrian Formation!" Jasmine shouted out the order as Makoto could only watch on in awe as to what happened next. Hadrian Formation referred to a great wall built by the Romans in their territory of Britannia during the ancient times. This wall was never broken by any force that had faced the Romans until they abandoned their territories in the British Isles, the idea was that they were to do the same.

"Roger!" The remaining commanders all agreed on their orders and made sure the Drivers knew what to do. Right off the bat, Gypsy, having tired of them following her, had her drive pull a 180-Degree Turn and reverse up. She was joined alongside Flan and Chelsea forming the first portion of their wall. They were backed up by Jasmine and Cream forming a W-like shape in theory. Now the stage was set, Tokai's spearheading column was met by Jasmine's unimpressed gaze.

"All tanks! Fire!" An absolute wall of 40mm, 57mm and 75mm fire met the very vulnerable Tokai Tanks. They reacted back with their own desperate fire to ward off Hadrian's Wall.

"Fire fire fire!" Minori yelled out as she fired and loaded the gun, all by herself, so really, she was just yelling at herself to shoot even more than she could. The M6 ahead of them had done the same, but their loaders had been tuckered out at this point and Ran abandoned her .50cal position to go help Aoi and Mai cycle fire.

"Not even the most powerful or precise of strikes we can make is going to break through that wall." One-by-one, the Tokai Tanks feel to the onslaught of fire, first came the M6, followed by Minori's curses coming from the Panzer III and finally the Ha-Go which let off one final round in futility.

"Oopsie, guess I didn't think that plan out all too well." Aizu chuckled and patted the back of her neck. Their entire tank was dusty now and all sorts of nasty stuff was in their hairs. "Oh well! There's always a next time for everything, contact the recovery crew on our whereabouts, Minomino." She smiled at an absolutely fuming Minori.

"Well this isn't good, Hina-san, fire a HEAT Round into one of those tanks and Asagi-san, please get us out of here before they spot us." The Ho-I fired a HEAT round directly into the rear of one of the Matildas, particularly that of Gipsy's, and retreated as the crews from Lady Atkins recovered from the attack and the sudden Knockout of their comrade. All the while, Makoto was on the run now, only she and Ryoko were left. "Shiori-san, please contact Ryoko for, we need to figure out a plan of attack."

While Makoto was figuring out her next step, Jasmine and her remaining crews were left to recover. "Four Tanks left, those Tokai Girls put up more of a fight than I had expected. Don't think that last part was apart of the Shimada Girl's plan…" Jasmine was getting tired already, the battle has exhausted her more than she had initially planned for. "I hate to say, but it's time for us to go on the offensive, it's unlike me, but the odds are more in our favor than ever."

"Roger that Commander, I'll inform the other crews." Lavender got busy at work communicating with the remaining tanks. Both teams were now formulating what were pretty much their last plans of action. The match was quickly spiraling towards its end, and something aggressive has to happen to bring it there. While Lady Atkins planned to do just that, Makoto had other ideas in her mind, having consulted with Ryoko to form a more defensive and unorthodox plan.

"They're going to attack us right away, since there's only two of our tanks left, it's obvious that an attack to take us out should come soon." Makoto had seen right through the way Jasmine was thinking. But it wasn't like it was a very complex plan, most people could figure their own numerical advantage. Then again, those same people probably just saw the failure that was Aizu's Offensive.

"Right, but what should we do about it, we no longer have the advantage, they're practically right on top of us this time, no conveniently placed slopes to slow them down this time." Ryoko wasn't so promising on their chances at victory, the recent turn of events had overpowered the recent successes. "The best we can do is take them down with us, and maybe look good while we're doing it."

"A last stand then, I can do that, Ryoko-san, could you by chance, pose as decoy for us? That main road could be a really good place for you to set up a good arc of fire. The flames should've died down by now." The Liquid Incendiary Rounds they had deployed earlier weren't all that long lasting, mostly due to the quality of the rounds, and maybe some Regulation Rules in the mix too.

"Flames? There were flames involved?" She questioned what Makoto had just said, mainly due to the fact that she and her team had been busy evading Lady Atkins. As well as actually coming back to Mr. Hashimoto's for some Ramen during the match as well. "I don't even want to know what you've been up to, to be honest."

"Ooo, has Makoto been a pyromaniac all this time? At least that makes her interesting." Toshiko was about to insult Makoto's personality, but she was stopped when Ryoko pushed her hand into her face repeatedly. "Ow! Stop that!" She covered up her face when the barrage of hands didn't stop.

"Alright, we'll get set up on the main road and see what we can do while we wait around. But you're going to have to lure them our way, it's not particularly a good idea to let the Tank Destroyer be bait, sorry for the particular wording." She had a point, the StuG III was maneuverable, but in no way was fit to really be bait. Naturally, the only remaining tank was Makoto's Ho-I and since it was an annihilation/elimination match and not the standard flag match, there was a lot less focus on losing that many tanks.

"Sure, at this point, my team is used to being bait at this rate, we'll be with you soon Ryoko-san." She tapped on Shiori to tell to her cut off the radio and was now in pretty awkward silence with the rest of her crew. "Well, guys, looks like we're going to be bait, again, I guess." Her icebreaker put the others in high spirits, even if their current role was rather mundane.

"Alright Mako-san, at least it's better than sitting around." Shiori grinned widely, which was rather ironic, as her entire job was practically just sitting around doing nothing half the time anyways. Being a Radio Operator really was that role that was always leftover for last. "And don't dare say I'm a lazy bum."

"You are…" Asagi mumbled to herself as she got them back into gear and rolling again. They were going to drift in and out just within visual range of the Lady Atkins Formations and try to lure them towards Ryoko. "I want something as an reward after this...maybe treat myself to some of Mr. Hashimoto's ramen before it's back to instant stuff." She continually talked to herself mainly because without her, this team likely wouldn't be doing nearly as well mobility wise.

"Me and Hina-san will fire at them to catch their attention and to make it seem like we're attacking, how does that sound Makoto?" Tsuki was enthusiastically holding up some Armor Piercing rounds they had leftover. "We may be running out of these HEAT Rounds and these AP Rounds may as well be as useful as HE, but I suppose it doesn't matter if we're leaving it up to Ryoko-san."

"That's right, all we have to do is catch their attention, shouldn't be too hard, but if anything doesn't happen, we have to try everything we can to make them chase us down the main road." All members of the crew nodded their heads in agreement as they neared the last position of Lady Atkins, who were already preparing to move out again either way. "There they are, fire as we pass through the streets, doesn't have to hit them or even come close to hitting them."

Unexpectedly, shots started to ring out as low velocity rounds impacted the dirt and the buildings around them. They caught the attention of the remaining Lady Atkins tanks and their crews. "Commander, they're firing at us, rather poorly too, what should we do about it." Cream watched as the rounds just all blindly missed them, and she somewhat felt some pity about it.

"Ah, just leave them for now, angle your armor if you have too, just focus on checking your remaining ammo and supplies before we head out." Jasmine wasn't too worried, as long as they kept their frontal armor to the Ho-I, there was practically no way for them to penetrate their tank with AP at that range and it was too far away for Hina to properly aim HEAT.

"It's not working, they're not following us Makoto-san." Hina had noticed their lack of activity while she was targeting them. For now it seemed like Makoto's entire plan of attempting to lure them was failing. "Sadly, I don't think we're allowed to directly fire incendiary rounds at them, so what do you want to do Makoto-san?"

"Don't worry! I got this." Suddenly, Shiori had pulled out a megaphone like device and started to put some batteries into it and turned it on. "Testing, One,Two,Three, alright, I think we're good to go. I got something nice to say to those girls that'll surely incite them to come and strangle us."

"W-where did you even get that…" Tsuki asked as Shiori attempted to wedge her way through the Ho-I's turret space. "This isn't how turrets work, four people aren't supposed to be in the turret!" Despite the normally spacious design of the Turret, it surely wasn't meant for four people, but Shiori had somehow managed to squeeze through. She popped her head of of the cupola and pointed the Megaphone towards the Lady Atkins tanks.

"Hey! Black Tea sucks! Green Tea for life!" As long as it took her to get up there, it took nearly a quarter of the time to just finish up and squeeze back down to her position again. "That should get them riled up and chasing us pretty soon, I hope anyways." Makoto wasn't too convinced however.

"What was that suppose to mean, why would that ever make them want to come after us-" She was cut off by the sound of small caliber cannon fire coming from behind them. "Please don't tell me that actually worked." It had actually worked, somehow Shiori had gotten the Lady Atkins crews riled up enough so that they would chase after them. "How did you know this Shiori-san…"

"Oh Mako, you should know that British People and generally British-like People love their Black Tea to death. Seriously, they don't like it when you insult Black Tea." She leaned back on the Hull Machinegun precariously and had an annoying smug smile on her face. "See, I can be useful~" While she was able to trick them into chasing their tank, it was now up to Asagi to get them where they were needed.

"Great, always leave it up to me…" She swerved and evaded the rounds coming from behind them. Rushing out of the buildings with the tanks behind them, they were now speeding down the main road. Quickly treading over the charred road that resulted from Makoto's earlier plans, who was now contacting Ryoko.

"You guys ready? They're coming right now!" She held on for dear life, which was quite odd seeing as she was more afraid now than she was at the start of the match charging their formation head on. "I hope this pans out in the end, I really don't want to do the Anglerfish Dance either." She dreaded the thought of it, as she was given colorful descriptions by her friends before the match.

"They're coming, alright, let's see about this." Toshiko rubbed her hands together and got in place. She stared down the road with her gunner's sight, waiting for the first British Tank to come over the horizon. First come Makoto's tank, far ahead of her own pursuers due to their significantly faster speed and acceleration. "They should be just behind her…"

Then her targets came, Two Matildas followed by Cream's Valentine IX. The first shot was nice and easy, as the Matilda was practically line up for a shot for her. "It's like one of those festival games!" She laughed as her round connected with Flan's Matilda and knocked her own. But then, she realized something, "L-Lasker...weren't there four tanks left on their sides."

The sudden realization hit Ryoko as well, there were only three tanks chasing after Makoto, where could that last one be? Their answer came in the form of a 75mm APCBC Round hitting the side of their StuG III and knocking them out. Jasmine had seen right through Makoto's plan and taken advantage of the chase. "Asagi! Turn here!" With their ace in the hold down, Makoto planned to take the fight into a more favorable position for her.

Using their superior speed, she was going to try and take out as many tanks as they could before their likely to be inevitable loss. "We're going to use up the remaining HEAT rounds Makoto-san!" Hina reported that they were switching to what's left of their HEAT rack and as they rounded the first left corner and were going to round the next left one to catch Lady Atkins as their side.

"Fire!" Makoto shouted as they turn the corner and in front of them and found Chelsea's Matilda facing towards them. The HEAT at this range combined with Hina's now more focused and desperate attitude had impacted the Matilda, throwing it back a few feet and knocking them out. "Forward, the Valentine should be on our direct right." She was proved immediately wrong as Cream's Valentine IX drifted around the corner to face them.

Asagi took one look at the tank in front of them and accelerated their Ho-I to an even high speed. Just barely dodging the shot put at them from the front by making a slight turn to the left. They came in at a collision angle to the Valentine, just grazing the side of the the latter's tracks and she slammed on the brakes to drift around them. "Oh that's not good…" Cream reacted calmly as the Ho-I came around them and their turret came to with Hina blasting them at point blank with 75mm HEAT.

By now Jasmine had arrived on scene with her tank and came across the smoky hulls of her subordinates. "Oh dear, they managed to do this much damage huh…" Her attention turned to Makoto ahead of her, their Ho-I next to Cream's tank, within a large dark cloud of smoke.

"Crew here, we're ready to engage the enemy." Mint had nudged Jasmine, who looked back at the smiling girl. Then at the rest of her crew, Anise's wild grind, Lavender's weak smile and the barely visible one of Chai. "Alright then." She nodded and looked ahead, "Let's see what you got!"

Makoto could her yell at them, but it was indistinct,"Let's engage them, finish off this match once and for all. Sensha! Forward!" They got back up speed and at the range between the two, they would have to aim well to make sure their shot counted. "Drift around the StuG Asagi-san. Hina, we're going to fire HEAT at their side, okay." While they were going to engage the Valentine XI, the evacuated crews were watching back it play out back at their camps, the newly arrived ones from open back trucks.

The Valentine XI was stationary next to the smoking hull of the StuG III Ausf. F/8 and waited for the right time to fire at them. Picking up quite the impressive speed, mostly because they were on even ground, the Ho-I was at their left of the StuG hull with Anise tracking them. "Fire!" Jasmine shouted as they closed the range to practically point blank, however, the round they had fired was too well tracked, Anise overcompensated her shot and it went wide.

Now, Asagi had started to turn the tank, a lot of smoke kicked up from the way she drifted the Ho-I. But in the middle of it all, she had realized something, especially from the way they were turning. She had not compensated for the high speed she went in at when they entered the turn. "Crap…" She uttered as the tank spun out of control and she was unable to turn it. Spinning around rather than smoothly around the Valentine, they had found themselves completely the opposite way from their target.

"Now!" Jasmine and her crew took the chance while it was still presented, Chai turned the hull of the tank in conjunction with Anise's traverse of the turret. The latter aimed the gun at point blank towards the rear turret of the Ho-I and waited for the magic word. "Fire!" Jasmine's order signalled the end of the match with a hit to the back of Makoto's turret, knocking her out.

Final Analysis

* * *

Tokai Girls High School

Team A:

Type 2 Ho-I - Medium Tank

Makoto Shimada

Immobilized by Team Tea

Team B:

StuG III Ausf. F/8 - Tank Destroyer

Ryoko Matsuoka

Immobilized by Team Tea

Team C:

Type 95 Ha-Go - Light Tank

Natsuka Honda

Immobilized by Team Coffee

Team D:

M6 - Heavy Tank

Aoi Sato

Immobilized by Team Cake

Team E:

Panzer III Ausf. G - Medium Tank

Aizu Kishida

Immobilized by Team Custard

* * *

Lady Atkins Girls Academy

Team Tea:

Valentine XI - Infantry Tank

Jasmine

Survived

Team Coffee:

Valentine IX - Infantry Tank

Cream

Immobilized by Team A

Team Biscuit:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Scone

Immobilized by Team D

Team Custard:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Flan

Immobilized by Team B

Team Cake:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Chelsea

Immobilized by Team A

Team Pudding:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Eve

Immobilized by Team B

Team Pie:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Mince

Immobilized by Team E

Team Tart:

Matilda II - Infantry Tank

Gypsy

Immobilized by Team A

* * *

Victory Goes to Lady Atkins Girls Academy

* * *

"Folks! At this time, Lady Atkins has been confirmed to have won the Exhibition Match. All Tokai Tanks have been immobilized, with a single tank remaining from Lady Atkins. That concludes our Exhibition Today, there is a new special from the local Ramen Shop owned by Mr. Hashimoto, be sure to check it out! Have a good day." The announcer gave her amazingly long endnotes and thus, the match was over. Recovered from the field and brought back, the girls from the Ho-I were amazingly dusty and dirty when they came back.

"It's going to take forever to get this stuff out of my hair…" Shiori was more concern about her own hair than she was about the loss, or even that they have to do the Anglerfish Dance now. "Oh yeah, the Anglerfish Dance,I forgot about that too,maybe the suit will cover my hair up." She felt her hair, it was rather dusty and it was all tangled up, much to her dismay.

Asagi was sleeping on Hina's lap as they rode back and Tsuki was too tired from the constant reloading of the gun to actually talk any. As they got back to their camp, Aizu was waiting for Makoto to arrive. "Welcome back." She happily greeted them, but the former was waiting for all hell to break loose since they lost. "Ah don't worry about me chewing you over for losing, it's just an Exhibition Match anyways, and I'm really more crying on the inside that we're all going to have to do the Anglerfish Dance."

"I see, I will be going back to my station and check my tank, alright? You, just don't do anything." She left Aizu to her own emotion, all of which Makoto wanted no part of. However, what she didn't expect was Jasmine, waiting for her at her tank, she and her uniform were spick and span, all nice and clean. "Oh hey! You're the Lady Atkin's Sensha-Dou Commander person."

"Yeah, I just wanted to say congratulations on the new team, I was skeptical when Darjeeling had told us to face you guys in their stead. But, you exceeded my expectations, I do wish we had the full lineup here with us, but I suppose it was good practice to use the Matildas and Valentines." She smiled and offered a handshake, "You certainly did good Makoto Shimada."

"Yeah, you too…" They exchanged handshakes and Jasmine went to go pick something up behind the Ho-I. She didn't know what she was doing at first, "Um, what are you doing there." Jasmine returned with a basket full of Tea and presented it to Makoto herself.

"Here. Me and the other crews got together some Tea for you, we all pitched in for this." In reality, it was all of the Oolong Tea that they despised drinking, and so they just give it all to Tokai. There was practically enough tea in there for a single person to be drinking for months. "And I discussed something else with Aizu shortly after the match had ended, we got here before we did because of the great engineering of the Matador, and you should check that slip of paper in there. It's also something that oddly enough, Darjeeling wanted me to give to you too."

"Slip of paper, Darjeeling? You mean the Captain of St. Gloriana? What could she want with me…" She searched through the endless bags of Generic Brand Oolong Tea, it seemed like it was endless anyways. "Geez, it must be at the bottom or something." Finally, she felt the slip at the very bottom of the basket. "Is this it?" She pulled it out and started to read it.

"Congratulations! You and your School have received an (Un)Official Invitations to the National Sensha-Dou Secondaries!." Jasmine had actually read aloud for no apparently reason for Makoto, "Basically, Tokai's been preselected for the National Secondaries, which means you skip all the preliminaries and prerequisites required to get in. The drawing for the Tournament is a week from tomorrow, I hope to see you there, as only the Leading Crew is invited."

"Leading Crew? Does that mean me and my crew?" Makoto had never exactly been over how the command hierarchy in the Team worked. The closest she had remembered as that Aizu referred to her and Ryoko as their Double Aces.

"Yeah, I would think it's you, after all, you've demonstrated that you're probably the best one out of all the teams I've seen here today. Anyways, I have to leave, we're leaving port tomorrow to prepare for Secondaries ourselves, tell Aizu thanks for the match, see you next week Shimada-san." As quickly as her exchanges were, she left just as quickly, off towards her own team's camp.

"Hmm...National Secondaries…" She remembered her sister and her interview on the TV the other day. She was going to be there, and certainly her Mother was going to notice as well. This meant some very deep things for her, but, as long as she was with her new friends, there was not nothing that could stop her from going. "Alright, we'll be there next week then…but for now, I have to figure out how to do the Anglerfish Dance.

National Secondaries may have had their drawings next week. But here and now was the biggest problem. Tomorrow, she and the rest of the Sensha-Dou Team were going to do the Anglerfish in place of the First-Year Students. Surely, that was going to be a tougher challenge than any School or Tournament would ever give them, except Asagi's rage of course.


	7. Apologies and Update

It's become apparent to me, and likely to you guys too, that I am not going to be continuing Series Kai anymore, or at the least I'm not in the mood to be writing anymore Girls und Panzer Fan Fiction. Sadly, the way I approached this particular story has left me rather burnt out on Girls und Panzer, that and my previous stories and collaborations. I would certainly love to continue Series Kai, but I am no longer motivated to write it, I think it would be for the best that I announce that Series Kai will currently be put in indefinite Hiatus until I want to write it again, though truthfully told, I don't want to. I feel like I were to continue in my current mood about Girls und Panzer, that the quality wouldn't be as good as I want it to. However, that certainly doesn't mean that I will stop writing Fan Fiction. Most certainly, I'm going to be moving onto newer pastures, essentially writing Fan Fiction for different series, which I'm doing to feel fresh again with my writing. It's been a good run guys, but I think that I'm done with Series Kai, but I don't think there would be much missed, particularly if you ever watched the actual Anime itself.

-Apologies, Fuchsy


End file.
